Face the Fanfiction
by sloverlord
Summary: How did Ruberiot know of Star's crush on Marco in Face the Music? This story is a retelling of the show from Star's perspective to show how he could have guessed.
1. Prologue

As Star approached Ruberiot's studio, she could hear him trying to compose her princess day song.

"Perfect Princess Star, is great in every way. Hm... Perfect princess Star is-" Suddenly, he exclaimed, "UGH! It's so awful!"

There was a noise that sounded like him smashing the piano keys all at once.

"Stupid, Princess Star, why do I even try?" He pounded random keys on the piano in frustration. "Face it… Ruberiot… you are… a hack… like all the rest!"

He started to sound a little choked up and Star started to feel even worse for what she had said to him earlier. As she rounded the corner to enter his studio, she heard him say "You'll never amount to anything."

Star watched from the entrance as he balled up a sheet of music and threw it over his shoulder. The wad of paper bounced off her chest and into one of the numerous piles of attempts at music. They littered the floor of the studio.

"Whoa, so you're like a totally tortured artist? Cool!"

Star realized her previous impression of Ruberiot was completely wrong. Hope started to blossom in her chest. "Maybe we can do this. Maybe it won't be some trite, cookie cutter song if I work with Ruberiot" she thought to herself.

With hope renewed, Star started to wade through the piles of discarded paper, towards where Ruberiot sat, dejectedly hunched over his piano.

"That is a looot of paper, just to plug a name into a previously existing song."

She was now standing behind him, uncertain how he would react to my presence.

With a look that was equal parts sadness and fear, Ruberiot whipped around to look at her. His eyes began to tear as he backed up against his piano like a cornered animal. "What do you want?" he managed to choke out.

Star felt awful for what she had done to Ruberiot. He wasn't like the other songstrels. This man was possibly willing to do it her way. She couldn't "Star" it up here, there was too much at stake.

"You, uh, you forgot your stupid notebook" Star said with a nervous chuckle as she presented it as a peace offering. Star hoped this would help Ruberiot see that she was willing to try.

With a scowl plastered on his face, Ruberiot snatched the offered notebook from her hands.

After a short pause, she asked "Ruberiot, do you really hate princess songs as much as I do?"

"I do, Princess" he said, still looking a little upset. "I-I thought I could change them. I-I know they can be better. I can do better, but the show is tomorrow and I have nothing!"

At this point his fear and sadness had turned into apprehension. Now that Ruberiot knew Star was willing to work with him, the looming deadline was his biggest worry.

"If I go out there with your mom's old song, I'll be just as bad as all the others" He heaved a dejected sigh and slid down in his chair.

"This is bad. Why did I drop out of Law School School?" he murmured to himself. "Goodbye aspirations! Hello flipping cornburgers."

He was right, they were running out of time and had not even started. But, Star was determined. She wasn't going to let the one songstrel who was willing to work with her on making a real song give up now. She needed to act quickly, time was running short.

Star interrupted his despair by saying, "Ruberiot, nothing is that bad when you have a magic wand. How 'bout you and I turn this silly tradition into something real." With that she loosed a few blasts of magic to clean up the studio, make herself a chair, and sit him back up.

"Ok, so what is the plan?" Ruberiot asked after everything settled and the flames were extinguished.

"Well, you are supposed to write a song about me right?" Star asked.

Ruberiot gave a skeptical nod, but it was all she needed to continue.

"So what if we did just that, but instead of some silly, cookie-cutter song, we make the song describe my time on Earth so the citizens can see who I really am."

Ruberiot perked up at my suggestion and said, "This could actually work, the song can have multiple parts too, so that we can cover the multiple facets of your new life!"

"Oh this is so great! I'm so happy you are on board with this Ruberiot! I'll start at the beginning, the day I got my wand."


	2. Star Comes to Earth

Star was ready to tell Ruberiot her story, this was going to be the best princess day song ever. She knew she would have to tell him about all of her adventures on Earth so that he could make his song reflective of who she was. With this in mind, she launched into the story of the day she got her wand.

* * *

As per tradition, on Mewni, the princess inherits the Royal Magic Wand for her fourteenth birthday. That was the day everything began. I was so excited that before the ceremony I had to go on an adventure in the woods. Before I knew it however, it was time for the ceremony! So I hopped onto the nearest warnicorn and sped off towards the castle.

Crashing through the doors of the throne room, I careened up to the platform where my parents were waiting, leaping off the warnicorn when I arrived. As it tore through the back wall, I started panting with anticipation. Almost squeaking with excitement, I reached out to paw at the wand my mother was holding.

With a worried look on her face, she quickly pulled it out of my reach and held up a finger. Next she started talking about how the wand was some kind of responsibility or something. My memory gets a little fuzzy there as I was hardly listening, all of my attention was on the wand.

With an exuberant cackle, I reached out and snatched the wand from my mother the moment she finished speaking. As soon as the wand was in my hands, it became enveloped in a magical glow. As the glow faded with a flapping of wings, I saw the wand had transformed from my mother's boring old wand into the adorable wand I more or less wield today.

With a quick gasp of wonder I turned to my mother and said "Don't worry Mom, I can handle it."

As I am sure you remember Ruberiot, I could not, in fact handle it.

The kingdom was soon bursting with flaming rainbows and tons of confetti were raining from the sky.

After cleaning up the mess I had made, my parents started packing up one of the royal carriages with my belongings.

I ran over to them screaming. "NOOOOOOOOOO!" Tears burst forth as I grabbed my mother's dress to plead.

"I can be good! Please, don't send me to St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses!" Even now I still have trouble holding back a bloodcurdling scream when I hear the name.

Cutting off the scream I was giving then, my father said "Sweetheart, we're not sending you there."

I immediately popped up and put on my best good princess face.

"Oh!"

My mother quickly added in "Yet."

Father then resumed his explanation saying, "We're sending you to train in a safer dimension. A place called Earth!"

"Earth?" I had never before heard of that dimension, but thought it sounded kind of boring. It was the safe dimension after all.

As I was dragged sighing to the carriage, my father called out to the servant, "Manfred! Open the portal!"

Manfred pulled out his dimensional scissors and quickly opened a portal to Earth. As the carriage made its way into the portal, I gave one last longing look back at my home.

"Goodbye Mewni."

When we came out of the portal, we were right out front of what was soon to become my new school and where I would meet my best friend. We made our way inside and my parents quickly found the person in charge, Principal Skeeves, to talk about enrolling me there.

As they talked, I quickly grew bored and started looking around the room to find something to entertain myself. After a few minutes, I found a curious device sticking out of the wall and went to go see what it was. After flicking the switch up and down a few times, I realized that it controlled the lights in the room.

"And you said there was no magic on Earth," I said as I turned to my parents with a smug look on my face.

"Yeeeaaah," Principal Skeeves droned "This isn't gonna work."

I quickly became bored again and turned back to the light switch, determined to observer more of this Earth magic.

After I said goodbye to my parents, Principal Skeeves took me outside to wait on the "safe kid" he had called to show me around the school. While we waited, I became enamored by all of the new sights that surrounded me, it was a very different place than Mewni.

I was so entranced, I even missed Marco's arrival. At that point I had encountered a water fountain and was trying to discern its purpose. As I inspected it, I noticed a button on top of the fountain. Peering close I reached out and pressed the button. Water suddenly burst forth and I leapt back in alarm, assuming a fighting stance.

When the fountain remained motionless, I decided to take the offensive. I leapt forward and grabbed hold of the fountain, trying to bite it into submission.

"So, uh, you probably don't want to do that," said someone behind me.

"Must kill," I managed to get out between bites, not even bothering to look.

"Yeah, that's not alive."

"Oh!" I quickly hopped up and looked at him. "My name is Star, what's your name?"

"My name is Marco Diaz."

"I like safe kid better!"

"Ugh, let's just do this. Follow me and I'll show you around the school" Marco said as he started to walk off.

I quickly skipped on over to him, bubbling with energy. "Thanks for showing me around Safe Kid!"

"What! No! Look whatever you heard about me isn't true. I don't know where people get the idea that I'm so safe!" he ranted.

During this I was only half listening, still enamored with the sights of Earth.

Suddenly, he put his hand out in front of me and pointed at the ground. "Oh watch your step, loose tile."

Paying him no heed, I continued to dance along after him, inspecting everything I came across.

"It's ridiculous!" he continued before stopping to close an open locker and say "Careful!"

At this point, I realized he was telling a story and calmed down a little to listen.

"You wear a helmet in the gym shower one time and you're labeled for life! Ooh, broken glass." He then grabbed me and steered me around the debris that he had mentioned.

"Frankly, I like taking risks! And would welcome a little danger in my life!"

He had been so helpful to me, I decided to help him back. So I looked around and spotted a butterfly flying nearby. Raising my wand, I concentrated and blasted it with some magic. The butterfly suddenly grew to the size of an adult and became a monster. I smiled to myself, he wanted some danger, and I gave him some. I was such a great friend.

The monster roared at Marco before flying off to grab another student. The monster grabbed the kid and took off over the school.

"What the heck was that?" I heard Marco scream from behind me.

"Oops" I said with a chuckle, "I thought you wanted a little danger!"

Marco slid out from behind me with a disgruntled look on his face. Before skeptically looking my direction, as if he was reevaluating his life choices and drawing away from me a little.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a maaagical princess from another dimension!"

As I explained, I did a little twirl before creating a rainbow above my head with my wand. Small, adorable animals popped out from it as I held my pose. Marco simply looked as if he was still trying to process everything.

Suddenly, the rainbow burst into flames and the animals scattered.

Seeing the flames, Marco clapped his hands together and said "Well, that brings us to the end of our tour! I'm going home now!"

"Bye new friend!" I called out as he turned and started walking away. "See you tomorrow!"

Marco then pulled up the hood on his signature hoddie and started running as I continued to wave goodbye.

While I had been watching him leave, the fire had spread to a nearby rooftop and was getting a little out of hand. I turned around and after a few attempts managed to put out most of the fire.

Now I just needed a place to stay. Abandoning the remains of the fire, I went off to find Principal Skeeves. Before my parents had left, he had mentioned there was a family that housed foreign exchange students and that I could stay with them to get used to life on Earth. He also had my trunk with all of my stuff still in his office.

By the time I arrived at Principal Skeeves' office, he was well into his ice cream and when I asked where I would be staying, he handed me a map. I then proceeded to grab my trunk and blast my way over to the home of my host family.

Shortly after I arrived and introduced myself, I was entertaining my new host family by telling them stories of Mewni. Suddenly, the door opened and in strolled my new Earth friend Marco! I was so excited I could hardly contain myself as I bounced up and down on the couch.

"Oh Marco! Come meet the new foreign exchange student who's gonna be living with us!" exclaimed Mrs. Diaz.

Marco simply stood dumbfounded in the doorway, unable to form coherent words, it was so adorable.

"What!" I exclaimed as I leapt off the couch to drag him inside, "I had no idea these were your parents! I just assumed everyone on Earth had the last name Diaz!"

"Won't it be nice to have Star's upbeat, lively energy around the house?" sang Mrs. Diaz.

Rolling his eyes, Marco retorted "We could have gotten that from a litter of puppies!"

With a gasp I pulled Marco's arm close before throwing it back into his chest. I just had a great idea.

"I. Love. Puppies!"

I ran out into the middle of the room and channeled the magic in my wand, pointing it at the floor. Marco was going to love this! With a burst of magic, eight puppies appeared on the floor of the Diaz household.

"Awww" sighed Marco's parents as they looked at the puppies.

Without warning however, things started going wrong and the puppies started firing lasers out of their eyes. Marco leapt back in fear as I cringed at my handiwork.

Biting my wand for a moment I turned to Marco as I picked up a puppy to at least slow down the destruction they were causing.

"Well they are really cute," Mr. Diaz said with a chuckle, trying to keep me from feeling bad.

"Marco! Why don't you show Star her new room?" Mrs. Diaz asked.

With Marco lugging my trunk like a gentleman, I rushed up the stairs with the laser puppies in tow. When I reached my room I slammed open the door to survey my new room while I waited for Marco to arrive. It was kind of bland, but nothing I couldn't fix.

"Here's your new room," Marco said with a grunt as he hauled everything inside.

"Okaaay, I can work with this."

With a deep breath I leapt into the air, shouting "Sparkle, Glitter, Bomb Expand!" This spell would certainly make my new room more interesting.

With a flash of Magic and the rumbling of a wall getting blown out, my old, boring room transformed into a tower. This new room was much closer to my old room from Mewni and was much more preferred over the Earth room I had before.

"Ah, that's better!" I sang out while Marco stared about in amazement.

"I wish I had a room like this."

"You do?" I exclaimed with a gasp, leaping over to where he was standing and grabbing his shoulder. I took off running over to Marco's room, eager to show him how great of a spell caster I was.

"Mystic, Room, Suck Transform!" I shouted with a twirl of my wand.

The spell cast, opening a hole in the floor of Marco's room. Soon, everything was being pulled in, even us. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the laser puppies and pushed Marco out of the room ahead of me, slamming the door shut behind me.

"Suck! Suck? Why was the word suck in that spell!" he shouted.

"I don't know it just came out that way!" I yammered, knowing I had messed up bad, he probably hated me at that point.

Marco rolled his eyes with a sigh before leaning into the door. Yup, he defiantly hated me, I had really "Starred" that one up.

"I'm sorry Marco!" I said, trying to think of a way to make things better with my new Earth friend. "How about a little sunshine to brighten your day?"

With a quick thought, I fired some magic at the space above Marco's head, thinking this would surely help his mood. A little, smiling sun appeared over him and it seemed like my spell had worked! In the next instant however, it morphed into a raincloud, pouring water down upon the poor guy. My hopes were immediately dashed, and when Marco turned around, I knew things had gone from bad to worse.

"I can't take this anymore! If you are moving in, I am moving out!"

After swatting at the rain cloud, Marco walked over to the nearest window and climbed out of it. That is how badly he wanted to get away from me, it was awful. Unfortunately, we were on the second floor. With a yelp, Marco plummeted out of sight to the ground below.

"Are you okay?" I called out after running to the window and leaning out to look at him.

"Luckily the cactuses broke my fall."

"Do you need any help?" I really wanted to make things right between us.

"Ow! I'm fine! Just leave me alone!"

With that said, Marco turned around and started walking away. I held out my hand, trying to think of something, anything to say that could help. Nothing came to mind though, so I pulled back my hand. However, the sight of him walking away was so pitiful that I reached out again, as if to offer some kind of help. Remembering what happened last time though, I quickly retracted my hand a second time.

But I couldn't just let him go like that, so I reached out to comfort him again. I quickly realized there was nothing I could say and gave up. I started to walk away from the window, but the guilt was too much. I ran back to the window, arm outstretched to bring him back and apologize. By that point though, he was gone. I knew then what I had to do to make things right, I ran downstairs and out the front door to find him.

After wandering around town looking for him, I finally found him. He was in front of a shop, soaking wet and a little crazed. I felt awful.

I walked up to him, and when he noticed me, he leapt back in alarm and fear.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the apprehension clear in his voice.

With a quick blast of magic, I dispelled the raincloud into a handful of butterflies. With a crestfallen look, I began my explanation.

"I didn't get a choice about coming here to Earth, and you didn't get a choice about having to deal with me. I'll… I'll find another family to live with."

Suddenly, Marco's look of sympathy turned into one of fear and he pointed behind me.

"S-St-Star?"

I spun around to see my nemesis Ludo and his army of monsters standing behind me.

"Star Butterfly, at last, I've found you!" Ludo exclaimed.

"Ludo! How did you know I was here?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yes, that's why I asked."

"Well, Buff Frog – Hey! I don't have to tell you anything! Get her!"

The army of monsters let loose a roar, hefting their weapons for battle. I assumed a fighting pose, ready to take them on.

At that moment, Marco gallantly leapt in front of me, also assuming a fighting stance. With a cry, he punched the first monster that came at us right in the gut. This was followed up by an uppercut that was transitioned into a front flip kick combo. Resting his foot on the monster's head, Marco looked about as surprised as I felt. Marco had just gotten even more awesome.

"Ho-ho! You can fight?"

"It's called, karate!" he exclaimed, turning to chop the next monster that was approaching.

Not to be outdone by this awesome Earthling, I ran over to the nearest enemy with a yell and a spinning kick. When I hit him, he let go of his hammer. Unfortunately for him, the hammer flew straight up and landed on his head, knocking the monster out cold.

I heard a battle cry from behind me as Marco launched himself towards the enemies. He just kept getting cooler and cooler. I quickly blasted an approaching monster with my wand while Marco threw an enemy across the lot we were fighting in. I looked over to make sure Marco didn't need help and saw him try to chop down on an enemy with two heads. When he missed his chop, he made a fist before rapidly swinging it back and forth, hitting both heads at the same time.

With a scream of joy, I leapt down from my perch to fight a giant giraffe monster. Leaping onto his back, I used it as a springboard to get above him.

"Rainbow Fist Punch" I yelled, channeling the magic through my wand. A rainbow shot out with a fist at one end, punching the monster. The monster was knocked head first into an Earth carriage, becoming stuck.

From where I am, I see Marco run to the other side, a monster hot on his heels. Before I can respond however, Marco opens the door of the Earth carriage and the giraffe monster's head pistons out. This sends the monster that had been chasing Marco flying!

Back to back, Marco and I continue to fight, taking down each enemy as they come close. As one of the monsters, Buff Frog, comes close, I point my want at him and cast Jelly Bean Hallucination Mist. This stops him in his tracks as the hallucinations take hold.

I take a moment to share a smile with Marco, the fight was so much fun, especially with him there. The monsters take this moment to hit both us, sending us sprawling. As the monsters approach, we both leap back into action, sending the monsters who hit us flying.

As fun as this was, it was time to wrap things up. With that in mind, I decided to use one of my favorite spells. With a smile plastered to my face I channeled the magic into my wand before yelling "Mega Narwhal Blast!"

With a surge of magic, a multitude of narwhals came bursting forth, flying through the air. When the dust had settled, all of the monsters were utterly defeated. I quickly dispelled the narwhals allowing them to return to wherever magical narwhals come from.

Turning to Ludo, I taunted him saying "Want some of this Ludo?"

"Nooo" sighed Ludo as he pulled out his dimensional scissors and prepared to leave.

"You see you morons, this is what happens when you don't work out!" screamed Ludo as he went to open a portal. "Your muscles are like pudding. Come on, back in the portal, back in the portal. You even retreat like losers."

Marco and I watched them leave, they weren't enough of a threat to stop, plus I had a new monster fighting buddy.

"I'll get you Star Butterfl-" with a gurgled choke, Ludo pulled himself though the portal as it closed, cutting off his threat.

"That was amazing! I was amazing! You were amazing!" exclaimed Marco as I walked over, feeling proud of myself. All of my spells had gone off perfectly.

"Yeah, I guess we were."

He defiantly was, I had not expected that at all. Suddenly I remembered that I was going to have to leave his home and all of my joy drained. Not only was I going to lose my only Earth friend, but also my monster fighting buddy.

"Well, I should probably go pack my bags"

I started my dejected walk back to the Diaz house. Before I could get more than a few steps though, Marco ran over and gently grabbed my shoulder.

"Wait! I don't want you to go, I want you to stay with us."

Suddenly all of my sadness turned to joy. I wasn't going to lose anything. I got to keep hanging around Marco.

"Really?" I asked as I spun around, the joy evident on my face. Seeing that he was serious I couldn't stop myself from pulling him into a hug.

After a moment, I broke the hug with my new best friend and we started walking to his home.

"Are there going to be monsters attacking us all the time? Asked Marco as he did some practice karate moves in excitement, a wild look on his face.

"Yeah, probably" I said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Alright! Sounds so dangerous! Whoa! Let's cross at the light."

We had just reached the road that we needed to cross to get home as he stopped me from crossing.

"Okay, wild man." I said with a smile. Raising my wand, I fired off some magic out of excitement for my new life


	3. Party With a Pony

Star was excited, Ruberiot had seemed to enjoy her first tale. In fact, he seemed eager to hear more about Star's adventures on Earth. Star knew this would be the best princess day song ever. Knowing that no princess is truly complete without a best friend, Star launched into the tale of the night her besties became besties.

* * *

I was stoked, Marco had claimed to be an amazing chef and was preparing something he called Nachos for me to eat. I had never heard of this food before, but if Marco was suggesting it, it had to be good.

"Alright Star, Feast your eyes on this!" cried Marco as he whipped around, a plate of strange triangles, covered in cheese were piled high on the outstretched plate.

"Marco's super awesome nachos" I said, clapping with excitement to try out this new food as Marco held out the tray, looking quite pleased with himself. Grabbing one, I let out a gasp of wonder, "Triangle food!"

Right as I was about to eat the nacho, there came a knock from the door.

"One sec" said Marco as he went to get the door, taking the rest of the nachos with him.

I trailed behind, not wanting to stray too far from Marco or this new wonder.

"Yo, what up home fries?"

Next thing I knew, Marco let out a scream and passed out in the doorway, spilling the nachos everywhere.

"Oh my gosh!" I exclaimed, once I saw Marco wasn't dead. Stepping forward, onto and then over Marco, I continued to gush, "Flying Princess Pony Head!"

It was my other best friend, come all the way out to earth to see me.

"Oh hello B-fly!"

Giggling in excitement, I embraced her in a hug, it had been too long. All thoughts of Marco were banished for a short moment as we reconnected.

"Giiirl, we're goin out tonight! Are you ready to make some bad choices?" asked Pony Head with a mischievous glint in her eye.

I was super excited at this point, Pony Head always knew how to have a good time. The crew was getting back together. I suddenly remembered Marco, this would be a great opportunity. Not only would this help draw him out of his shell, but he and Pony Head could become best friends too.

"Let me just wake up Marco." I said to Pony Head as I pointed to the body lying prone behind me.

"Oh that is not a dead person?"

"Not dead." Marco managed to croak out as I reached down to help him up.

Holding up Marco's semi-limp body, I took hold of his hands and used them to gesture as I talked.

"Pony Head, meet my best friend, Marco Diaz!"

"Your best friend?"

"Huh? Oh! Oh! No! No! No! On Earth! You're my best friend on Mewni! Marco, this is the pony I've been telling you about."

As Marco looked up to get a better view of Pony Head, she rushed right up into his face.

"I hate your face! Plus you're ugly." She said with a laugh. I had forgotten how she could be sometimes and Marco looked less than happy. "Just kidding. That's a joke!"

Marco didn't look like he thought it was funny.

"Tick-tock girl! Let's partay!" exclaimed Pony Head as she came up next to me.

"Yeah Marco, lets partay!" I exclaimed, grabbing his arm, I really wanted him to feel included and to enjoy himself.

"With her? Um, Okay, well, I was kinda, but I, I was gonna" he started to stammer.

I could tell he was right on the brink of accepting, I couldn't let him back out now. Putting on my best puppy dog face, I tried to look as pitiful as possible.

"Eh, alright." Said Marco, pulling a nacho off his sweater and taking a disgruntled bite.

It was good enough for me, we could cheer him up as the night went on. This night was gonna be great.

"My two besties, are gonna be besties!" I screamed. I grabbed each of them and pulled them into a group hug out of excitement.

"Sweet! Let's go." Said Pony Head as she regurgitated a pair of dimensional scissors. Suddenly, this night had gotten a whole lot more interesting.

"Dimensional Scissors? Aaagh! Jealous!"

"Wait, we're going to anoth-" started Marco. Before he could finish, I had grabbed his hand and pulled him through the portal to get the party started.

Tumbling out the other end of the portal, I saw we were in my favorite club, the Bounce Lounge! Pony Head knew what she was doing, that's for sure. Laughing the whole way down, me and Pony Head landed with practiced ease on one of the couches in the bounce lounge.

In the heat of the moment, I had forgotten to warn Marco about the drop. With a thud, he slammed into the floor in front of us before he started to pick himself up and look around.

"Where are we?" he asked in wonder.

"The Bounce Lounge! My favorite place to chiiill." I said, leaning back on the couch. Suddenly I remembered to call out a warning to Marco "Just stay away from the edge."

I heard terrified scream from Marco, apparently he had found the edge. I was proud of being such a good friend and warning him, I wanted to keep him around.

"Hey Pony Head, we should get pictures to celebrate!" I exclaimed. I pushed her over to the booth as I went to grab Marco.

"Marco! Photo booth! Photo booth!" I exclaimed, pulling him over to where Pony Head waited. Without waiting for him to even process what was happening, I knocked Pony Head into the booth. Marco was soon thrown in after her before I jumped in.

We took tons of pictures together. Suddenly, I had a great idea.

"Now, just you two! A souvenir of the night my besties became besties, yaaay" I exclaimed to Pony Head and Marco before ducking out of the booth. Now my besties could get some great friendship photos together.

As they were taking their pictures, I made my way out onto the dance floor so that I could claim a spot for us to dance. Pony Head showed up first, immediately joining me in my dancing. Marco was much more reserved.

"Pst, Star. I need to talk to you." He said when he finally made it out onto the floor.

Before his words had registered, I grabbed his hand and dragged him out into the middle of the dance floor. I took his other hand in mine and started spinning with him. Dancing with Marco was so great, I didn't want to stop.

He started to say something, but before he could finish, we were interrupted by Pony Head and her wild dancing. She had knocked us apart. I was a little upset my dance with Marco had been cut short, but I let the music take me and just kept dancing.

I heard Marco scream and looking around, I saw him hanging off the edge of the club. Dashing over, I extended my hand to help him up and drag him back into the dancing.

"Marco, be careful!"

"Pony Head just tried to shove me off this cloud!"

I suddenly did not feel like dancing, Pony Head was being Pony Head. I needed to smooth things over.

"Oh no, she just gets a little wild when she dances."

I turned to find her on the dance floor, confident she would validate my statement. With a whinny, she made her location known and I homed in on her location.

"Oh yes! Oh you like that, you know you do! You love it!" she screamed as she rode her dance partner, not unlike a horse.

"She also threatened to skewer me in the photo booth!" Marco exclaimed.

This was not good, I figured I would just come clean. Marco is a nice guy, I was sure he would understand. I looked down, kind of embarrassed by Pony Head's behavior.

"Yeeeah, she can be… possessive."

I decided that maybe we should go to a new location, one Marco would enjoy more. I turned to see Pony Head still dominating her dance partner, he would probably appreciate this about as much as Marco.

"Pony Head, let's go to the Amethyst Arcade! Marco will have more fun there."

Without missing a beat on her dancing, Pony Head called back, "No way girl! I'm. Getting. My. Dance. On."

Suddenly Pony Head changed her mind, and rushed over to where Marco and I were standing. "Yes, you are right Star. He will like the arcade better! Let's go."

She's warming up to youuu!" I sang, hopping in place before shoving Marco through the portal. I quickly followed him, hopping through backwards.

When I came out, I found Marco staring in around the arcade in awe. I was so happy he liked it, hopefully it would be more his style than the club.

"Holy pixels, so many video games!"

"Yes, I knew you would like it here, this place is full of squares" said Pony Head as if it was her idea. I smiled to myself at her insult, knowing it was all in good fun. I just hoped Marco knew as much too.

"Look! Lance Lance Revolution! That's perfect! You guys, go, play!" I exclaimed, spying the popular game. If nothing else, I hoped they could settle their differences with a friendly competition. We made our way over to the game and they both hopped up happily.

While I was explaining the game to Marco, Pony Head went ahead and set up the names. Once Marco was ready, he grabbed his lance and got ready to play as the opening screen popped up. As the announcer said the names Pony Head had entered, Marco and I realized she had put his name in as Earth Turd. I sighed to myself, questioning why Pony Head felt the need to antagonize Marco.

Sure, he's wonderful and all, but that didn't mean Pony Head needed to feel like our friendship was threatened. I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts on Marco and how I could get Pony Head to like Marco even half as much as I did by the sound of their banter.

"You're goin down, Downer" said Pony Head.

"Oh yeah? Well, your mother's a horse!"

"Ah okay, and your point would be?"

"Aw, look at you two, getting along!" They were really into their battle, both of them giving it their all. I reached out to pat them on the back, proud of their progress. Once I made contact, I realized both were very sweaty from their game.

Pulling a face, I told them "I'll go get us some nice cold icicles to put on your disgusting, sweaty backs" before dancing off to the refreshments stand. When I got there, I lined up and started looking at the icicles I could choose from. The person in front of me was being indecisive, but that was fine.

His inability to choose just meant Pony Head and Marco had more alone time to bond over their game, even if I wanted to go back and hang with them. I really wanted them to get along, I was planning on keeping Marco around for quite a while after all.

"Hey Star, I'm bored" said Pony Head as she rushed over to me. "So, uh, lets bounce."

I had thought their match would have lasted longer, but oh well. I figured it was time to placate Pony Head anyways. We had been at the arcade long enough that Marco would probably be fine going to a club somewhere. Pony Head quickly opened up the portal and stood next to it.

"Sounds cool, I'll just go get Marco" I told her.

Oh, nononononono, he went on ahead. Uh, yes, he wanted to save us a good spot in the mosh pit! Yes, that is the course of events."

"Classic Marco, always putting friends first." This was what I liked about Marco, not only was he funny, accepting, nonjudgmental, and adventurous, but he was also so thoughtful. I knew I had found a good best friend in him.

I quickly leapt through the portal to join him in the mosh pit, Pony Head right behind me. We dropped into the club, right over the dance floor, the crowd catching us as we fell and we started crowd surfing. Pony Head really knew the best places.

"Is this night a blast or what B-fly?" screamed Pony Head.

I agreed, both the night and the club were awesome. However, there was something missing, something that would make it even better.

Turning to Pony Head, I yelled "Yeah! But I don't see Marco anywhere!" His presence would make everything even better.

"Pft, you got me girl. And I'm way more fun!"

"Uh, what are you talking about?"

Suddenly, the club seemed a lot less exciting. I really hoped Pony Head hadn't done what I thought she had done.

"Uh, funny story, you're gonna love it. I kinda ditched him and left him in the other dimension. Oops."

She had.

"WHAT!" I screamed, sitting up to look at her. The sudden change in my position caused the crowd to drop me and I fell to the floor with a yelp.

"B-fly!"

"How could you do that to my best friend?"

"Best friend? Last time I checked, the best friend was me!"

"I can have two best friends! Unless one of them is a friend ditching liar!" I shot Pony Head an angry glare. I couldn't believe she had ditched Marco like that, I had thought they were getting closer.

"That Earth Turd means that much to you?"

"He's the best turd I've ever known."

"Okay, well go get him."

Pony Head seemed apprehensive, scared even, as she pulled out her dimensional scissors and opened a portal to the arcade. Before we went through, I reached out to her, to reassure her Marco would not be upset, another one of the things that made him so great.

"It's not that B-fly" said Pony Head. She had a look of determination in her eye as she passed through the portal. Thoroughly confused, I followed after her, ready for anything.

"There he is." I whispered to Pony Head when we popped out the other end of the portal. My Marco radar was on point, he was surrounded by some hulking people and was tied to a chair. I felt my blood start to boil, no one tied up my Marco and got away with it! I started charging up a spell to attack Marco's captors.

"Crystal, Dagger-"

"Wait B-fly!" Interrupted Pony Head, flying in front of my wand. "It's too dangerous girl! Hold out your hands."

Obeying, I held out my hand, unsure what Pony Head was going to do. What I didn't expect was for her to give me her dimensional scissors. I looked up at her in confusion.

"You're dimensional scissors?"

"I won't need them where I'm going." With a determined look on her face, Pony Head set off towards Marco's captors.

"But, Pony Head."

"Oh hey creeps! I heard you were lookin to ride with a pony! So come and get me."

The people surrounding Marco turned at Pony Head's taunt before running over to her. With a whinny, Pony Head took off down the aisles of arcade machines. As I ran over to where Marco was, I could hear Pony Head romping around the arcade as she and the patrons screamed. Her screams were from joy, theirs were less so.

As I made it to Marco, he managed to free one of his hands from his bindings. I figured it was going to take too long his way and leveled my wand at him.

"Stand back Marco" I unhelpfully warned him as I prepped my spell. Waving his arm, Marco protested and claimed he was fine. Having none of it, I fired off my spell "Shiny, Emerald Snake Strike!"

As snakes flew from my wand, they replaced the ropes that bound Marco, causing him to be covered in them, instead of the rope.

"Marco, stop playing around!" I grabbed him, pulling him out from under the pile of snakes to go help Pony Head.

Fortunately, she was easy to track, all Marco and I had to do was head towards the maniacal laughter and follow the mayhem. All of a sudden, Pony Head made it even easier for us to find her. Using her magic, she started firing blasts of energy at the arcade machines, causing them to explode.

Next thing I knew, I saw a blast heading for the giant crystal that powered the arcade. Grabbing Marco's hand, I pulled him into cover. Pony head had overloaded the crystal and machines everywhere started exploding. From our cramped hiding space, I saw Pony Head run into a wall and fall to the ground unconscious as the thugs closed in on her.

Untangling myself from Marco we leapt from our spot and jumped between Pony Head and her would be captors. Both of us were ready to defend her until she had recovered enough for us all to escape.

"Back off creeps!" I yelled at the approaching enemies.

"Don't worry Pony Head, we've got your back… of your head."

As pony Head came to join us in our struggle, a booming voice echoed throughout the arcade. "Time to give it up cupcake."

"Is that, King Pony Head?" I asked her.

Sure enough, King Pony Head rose up from behind the thugs, staring down at our resistance. Marco was dumbfounded. It is always so cute when he gets flustered by non-Earth things, though it hasn't been happening as much recently.

"Oh hello daddy" said Pony Head. She had adopted a much tamer mannerism in front of her father.

"Hello princess."

"What is he doing here?" I whispered to Pony Head.

"Oh, B-fly. It's the end of the line for me, but at least I got in one last night of fun with you girl."

"One last night? Before what?"

"Before this!" Suddenly tears sprang into Pony Head's eyes as she exclaimed "I'm going to St. O's!"

"Not St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses!"

"Oh, it's true, I did it to myself. I'm headed to the slammer!"

"It's reform school cupcake, not jail. Although admittedly it is a lot like jail" interjected King Pony Head.

"Awww, Pony Head. You knew you'd get sent to St. Olga's but you still came back to save Marco." I knew there was still hope for their friendship!

"Aw, well, you know. It's hard to say it but he is your other bestie. Okay, I said it."

"Oooh, come here" I exclaimed, pulling Pony Head into a hug. As we hugged, I reached out and pulled Marco in. Not only because he is a great hugger, but because he was part of the gang.

At this the thugs came over with a harness for Pony Head and said "Alright princess, it's time to go." After getting her into the harness, they started dragging her away.

"Bye Pony, I'm gonna miss you!" I called out, sad to see her go.

Unexpectedly, Marco called out to Pony Head. "Hey, Pony Head, good luck in princess jail."

"Aww, thank you Earth T- I mean, thank you Marco."

It took all of my self-control not to squeal with joy, I had known they could get along.

"But don't worry about me, no jail can hold onto me for long!" With a final, crazed laugh, Pony Head was dragged through the portal.

Finally, I couldn't contain it anymore and danced up to Marco. "Yaaay, my besties are besties!"

"Yeah, I wouldn't go that far" claimed Marco, but I knew better. "Hey! We're stuck in another dimension!"

"Oh no we're nooot" I sang, pulling out the dimensional scissors Pony Head had given me.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Marco, never really having seen a pair this close up.

"Now we can go anywhere we want, anywhere in the entire universe!"

"I know just the place" said Marco with a sly grin.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, Earth. You still have yet to try Marco's Super Awesome Nachos" he said with a grin.

Suddenly the memories of our plans from before Pony Head showed up came flooding back to me and I smiled.

"That sounds like a great idea!"

I opened the portal back to Earth, grabbed Marco's hand and dragged him through it with me. We tumbled out the other side in a heap on top of Marco's mess from earlier and broke out laughing.

"I guess I should go make some more, huh?" he said.

"I mean, we could always eat them off the ground" I suggested.

"Don't worry Star, only the best for you."

With a smile I followed him inside to watch him work.

In no time, he had a new batch ready for consumption and presented me the platter. "Take any one you want."

I grabbed one and took a bite. "These are so good!" I exclaimed, giving him a hug.

"Thanks, now let's go watch that movie and finish off the rest of these bad boys."


	4. Matchmaker

"Hey Marco, why do you always wear the same hoodie?" I asked one day while we were wandering the halls of the school before classes started.

"Actually, it's not the same one" he said with a grin.

"Whaaaa-" I said, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Are you sure? I've seen you in that sweater every day I've been on Earth!"

"Actually, I wear a different hoodie every day."

"Ok, you lost me. I demand an explanation." I knew he didn't wash it every night, I would have noticed that.

"Well you see, I like red, I like hoodies, so I bought a dozen of them." He explained.

Sometimes Marco does the weirdest things, it's one of the things that make him so adorable. Like a puppy!

"Hey, it's that magic girl!" someone abruptly shouted, stopping my conversation with Marco.

I looked up to see a large group walking the opposite direction and as they passed, I received greetings from most everyone in the group.

"Hi new friends! HI!" I exclaimed, waving to the group as it passed us. Turning to Marco, I told him "Everyone's so cool here Marco! It makes me wish my parents had tossed me out of the castle years ago!"

Admittedly no one was as cool as Marco and Pony Head, but the rest of the humans weren't bad.

"Oh you haven't even met the coolest guys" said Marco as he pointed over his shoulder. "Alphonso and Ferguson."

I got super excited, if they were even half as cool as Marco they would still be twice as cool as anyone else. I looked over to where Marco was pointing and spied two boys standing by a locker. Alphonso was tall and lanky while Ferguson was short and chubby.

"Quick, here she comes!" said Alphonso as he elbowed Ferguson to get his attention.

Ferguson quickly pulled up his shirt, revealing a face that had been drawn on his torso. Grabbing his fat, the boy made the face to seem to talk, saying "Hey, hey, are those books? Where you going with those books?" to a girl walking past the two.

I thought it was pretty funny and that these two seemed pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the other girl did not share my sentiments. As she passed them, she stopped. She then proceeded to slap Ferguson twice. Once on his face, and once on the drawn on face before turning to stalk away.

"They're usually cooler" said Marco.

With a smile, I told Marco "I need to fix Ferguson up." I had some great plans and knew he would be all for joining.

"No."

I was undeterred by Marco, I had a great plan. Before I could show Marco the error of his ways, we heard a loud noise behind us. Turning to look who it was, we saw that it was Jackie Lynn Thomas on her skateboard. She was one of the cooler Earth people I had met, not as great as Marco, but then again Marco is pretty great.

"Jackie. Lynn. Thomas." squeaked out Marco when he saw her.

"Hey Star Butterfly!" called Jackie as she skated past us.

"Hi Jackie!"

I turned to Marco, intending to talk to him about my idea for Ferguson but when I saw the look on Marco's face, a much better idea had taken its place. He was practically drooling on the floor.

"I need to fix you up." I said, grabbing Marco and pulling him out of his trance.

"What!"

"Oh come on! I'm almost as good at matchmaking as I am with magic" I explained as I passed my wand back and forth between hands. Right as I finished speaking however, I accidentally let lose a blast of magic. Which hit Marco square in the face. When it was done, he had a bald spot on top of his head and some of his hair was on fire.

"I'm good. Let's just go to class."

"Fine, but I'll fix you up first."

Giving him no time to prepare, I launched a blast of magic at Marco as he started to protest. This time my magic worked as intended, mostly, and his hair was wonderful again. Picking the residue from my magic out of his hair, Marco and I made our way to the classroom.

When we arrived at the classroom however, the teacher was not there. I do not do well with waiting around and quickly figured out a way to entertain myself. I reached into the awesome bag Marco had gotten for me, it was purple and had little spikes coming out the back and I loved it. I pulled out a pencil and started doodling on my desk.

"Looklooklooklooklook" I called to Marco as I finished my picture. As he leaned closer to examine it, I explained. "It's my name! It's my name, with a star, inside of a butterfly. And two hearts. And a spider." I gestured to my awesome drawing while I explained, adding the hearts and spider as I went.

Suddenly a hand slammed down on my desk with a sheet of paper beneath it, causing me to start. In my surprise I accidentally tossed my pencil, thankfully missing Marco. He likely would have yelled at me some more if I had. I looked up to see the horrifying face of our teacher, Ms. Skullnick as she glared down at me.

"As you can see class, most of you have done a pathetic job" ranted Ms. Skullnick while handing back these test things we had recently taken.

"Not me!" I sang to Marco after looking at my sheet. I held it up for him to see how great I had done, sure he would be impressed. "I got an F for fantastic!"

"That's an F, for fail" Marco whispered to me, popping my bubble.

My look of joy quickly turned to one of confusion. My test had all kinds of cool pictures on it, but apparently that wasn't what the teacher had wanted. I had no idea what was happening anymore with this test thing. "Huh?"

"What, you don't have tests on Mewni?"

We didn't, but the way he said it made it sound like it was obvious we should. I didn't want to seem like a fool in front of Marco, so I quickly changed the subject. "Uhhh, so what grade did you get?"

With a smile Marco held up his test, "Only the best grade you can get! A+. With, a smiley face."

"Oooh, I want the best one too!" I grabbed my test and eagerly made my way up to where Ms. Skullnick was writing on the board.

"Wait, don't!" I heard Marco cry out behind me. I wasn't going to listen though, I was on a mission.

"Oh Ms. Skullnick!" I sang as I approached the teacher.

With a growl, Ms. Skullnick crushed the chalk she was holding and swung to face me. Suddenly my idea seemed not quite as good.

"Hey Skullsy, can you please do me a teeny favor and turn my F into an A?" I held up my test to show her what I was talking about.

"You're whining about a lousy grade!" yelled Ms. Skullnick as she lowered my hand and got into my face. "I finally got a guy with a boat! And he left me at the dock!"

At this point spittle was literally flying from her mouth and I had to hold up my paper as a shield.

"The dock?" I had no idea what that was.

"The dock isn't the important part!"

Putting my wand into my mouth, I started chewing it. I find that it always helps me think.

"I guess I'm doomed to dry land" lamented Ms. Skullnick.

Suddenly I had an idea. I knew how to get my grade fixed, and how to help Ms. Skullnick. That's what being a born leader will do. "I got it! I'll cast a spell to get you the perfect guy, and you can give me the perfect grade."

"What?" Like most Earth people, Ms. Skullnick was unfamiliar with the greatness of magic. My plan was going to change that and make everything better.

"Man Magnet, Love Storm!" I cried, channeling power into the spell as it hit Ms. Skullnick dead on.

Lifting her up in a green glow, she began to transform. When the light disappeared, she dropped to the floor in her new form. Unfortunately for my grade, the magic had not worked as intended. Ms. Skullnick had turned into a troll. A look of shock was plastered on everyone's face, including my own.

Running up, Marco grabbed me by the shoulders and screamed "Star! What did you do?"

"I-I think I turned her into a troll."

Everyone sat in stunned silence for a second, processing what had just happened. Then, one of my classmates jumped up and shouted "Star Butterfly rules!" while the rest of the class started cheering.

"I'm hideous!" shouted Ms. Skullnick, silencing the class's cheers.

"Quick, change her back!" Marco said.

"Oh, okay, right." I let out a nervous laugh as I continued to babble. Then, channeling magic for a spell, I shouted "Lightning, Change Back!"

Ms. Skullnick screamed as the magic hit her. In a flash, Ms. Skullnick, Marco, and I were all transported back to my room at Marco's house. Upon arrival, Ms. Skullnick dashed off, still screaming.

"Where are we?" I asked. I was still getting used to the look of my new room at that point and did not recognize it at first.

"You just zapped us back to the house!" screamed Marco as Ms. Skullnick wandered back over, thankfully quiet.

"Oooh, I wish I knew how I did that. It could really come in handy if I don't feel like using my legs."

That was when Ms. Skullnick started screaming again. With a sigh, Marco and I walked over to calm her down.

"Oh it's not that bad Ms. Skullnick" I said, trying to reassure her. "Everything will be fine."

"So you know how to turn me back? Then hurry up and do it!"

Yeeeah, about that."

Realizing that I had no idea how to reverse the spell, Ms. Skullnick took off running around my room crying. Unfortunately, she was now a troll and was destroying my room.

"Catch her!" shouted Marco, "I'll go get some rope to restrain her."

"Come here Ms. Skullnick!" I called as I took off after her. In her new body, she was very fast and I was having trouble keeping up.

Fortunately Marco showed up, like a hero, with the rope at that moment and we were able to slow her down. After a while we tied her to a chair, just to stop her from taking off again. Unfortunately, her nonstop crying had started to flood my room. Marco ran off and quickly returned with some bauckets.

"Please don't cry Ms. Skullnick" I told her as Marco positioned the final bucket to catch her tears.

"Star, we can't keep stalling! You're gonna have to call your mom. She'll know how to reverse the spell."

I gasped, I had thought Marco was on my side!

"No! I can't ask for help! If my parents find out about this, they're gonna send me to Saint Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses! It's a terrible, horrible place and no one who goes there ever comes out the same!" I babbled, finishing it off with a scream.

"Is it all out yet?"

"Almost." I let out another blood curdling scream before telling Marco "Okay, I'm done."

"Look Star, you just need to get the information without letting her know what's going on. You know, dance around the truth."

"I'm a great dancer!" With that, I left the amazing idea boy with Ms. Skullnick and danced over to my mirror. "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, call Mom."

"Calling Tom."

"Whoawhoawhoawh-" I stammered as the mirror decided to call my ex-boyfriend. Someone who is not as cool as Marco, for the record.

"Star!" Tom started hopefully.

"No. No."

"Oh wait. You're here, I'm here."

"I said call Mom, not Tom." I interrupted, not even letting him try. I did not need that in my life while dealing with the Ms. Skullnick issue.

"No! Star!" Tom suddenly morphed into full rage mode, flames rising behind him and eyes glowing he continued "Don't hang up!"

I hung up.

"I really gotta delete him off my mirror" I told myself as I waited for the mirror to call Mom. This was why I had left him. I mean it's not that hard, Marco never has these issues.

"Oh Star darling, what a pleasant surprise" said my mother when she picked up.

"So… Mom… Let's just say that someone accidentally turned someone into a troll with a wand. Not that I would do that, no, because that would be completely irresponsi-"

My nervous rambling was cut off by a large crash and a scream from Marco. Next thing I knew, Marco came tearing across my room with a panicked look on his face. Things had gone bad, and I was not about to let Mom know that.

"Star, what is going on!" demanded my mother with an angry look.

Thinking quickly, I made the only logical choice and hung up on Mom while screaming "Gotta go, bye!"

Turning to Marco, I yelled "What happened?"

"She jumped out the window!" screamed Marco, pointing to a large hole in the wall.

"Quick, we gotta get her and fix this. Mom can't find out about this!"

I ran to the hole, grabbing Marco's hand and pulling him with me. Looking out the hole I was able to easily spot Ms. Skullnick as she tried to escape. Marco jumped down after her and I followed behind him. Marco landed first, knocking Ms. Skullnick to the ground. I then landed on Marco, who makes a great pillow by the way, and knocked the fight out of Ms. Skullnick.

"Wow! Good job Marco!"

Suddenly an unexpected voice taunted my words back at us "Wow! Good job Marco." Looking up, I saw Ludo and his army had shown up.

"Ludo! What are you doing here?"

"Catching you at your most distracted!"

"What? I have been way more distracted than this." Any adventure with Marco was way more distracting than just trying to change back our teacher.

"I don't know, you seem pretty distracted."

Nah, not really."

"Oh well. What's that over there?" Ludo suddenly yelled out and pointed to something behind me.

"What? Where?"

"Get her!"

With a roar, the monsters started to rush us. I hadn't found whatever Ludo was talking about, but something more important had come up. With a scream, Marco and I leapt off Ms. Skullnick's back so we could fall back and regroup.

As the monsters approached, I leapt into the air and readied a spell. "Dagger, Crystal, Heart Attack! Feel the love."

This sent a beam full of heart daggers flying into many enemies, taking them out of the fight. Marco meanwhile had been surrounded by three enemies, I knew they would need more than that to threaten him.

"I'm obligated to warn you, I'm a green belt, with a stripe" Marco said as he put on his head band and took up his fighting pose. Next he picked up a rake that was lying nearby and twirled it around at high speed as the monsters began their assault. It was really cool.

Marco quickly swung the rake out, hitting the first monster in the face and knocking him down. Then he turned to the second monster and swung low, taking out the monster's feet. As it fell, Marco spun the rake around and hit the monster in the face with the other end of the rake. As the monster fell, Marco stood up to look for the third enemy, a giant chicken monster.

This one however had gotten behind Marco and started pecking him repeatedly after knocking him down. Right as I was about to step in to help, Marco regained his senses and kicked up, right as the monster was coming down to peck him. This blow knocked the monster out in one hit.

As I saw Marco getting up, the monsters I had previously attacked rushed me. It seemed like they had finally recovered and needed to be taught another lesson from the princess. One of the monsters threw a punch at me. Dodging it, I grabbed the arm and bit down on it. Hard. I let go as the monster reeled back, screaming in pain.

I turned around just in time to see another monster as it tried to take a bite out of me. I quickly hopped back out of range but was unable to dodge the follow up tail slap that it sent my way. As I went sailing towards a monster that was still getting up, I spun to attack him. Once I was in range, I brought my wand down like a hammer and knocked him out of the fight.

Marco was faring less well. A large monster had him in a headlock and was repeatedly punching Marco in the stomach. Leaping into action, I fired a spell at the monster. "Rainbow Blast!" A rainbow beam with hearts and flying rabbit heads blasted the monster as Marco dove out of the way.

I helped Marco up and then leapt back into the fight firing off Narwhal Blasts at each monster. At one point I turned to see that the monster I had knocked off of Marco had somehow found Ms. Skullnick. Best part was they seemed to be in love and oblivious to their surroundings! "Awww, Narwhal Blast." I said, happy for them as I blasted a monster running up behind me.

I turned to watch Marco fight, making sure he didn't need any help. He seemed to have everything under control, his karate was serving him really well and that gave me an idea.

I made my way over to him with a blast of magic and asked "Hey Marco, you can handle this for a minute on your own, right?"

"Oh yeah, no problem." This is what I like so much about this guy, he's so great.

"Cool, thanks!" I said before running off to talk to Ms. Skullnick. As I left, I heard Marco let out a scream, I figured it was probably just one of those karate screams though so I didn't pay it much attention.

"Oh Ms. Skullnick" I sang out as I approached her. She was busy trying to climb over a fence and escape the battle.

"What."

"See that monster over there?"

I pointed to the monster Ms. Skullnick had been talking to, right as he lifted Marco above his head and threw him. I should probably go help him I thought. But first I had to deal with Ms. Skullnick.

"He thinks you're cute!"

"Really?" asked Ms. Skullnick, a silly grin on her face. She hopped down from the fence and asked me, "Oooh, what should I do?"

"Wait right here."

I ran over to where the monster was as he started to pull out a sword over Marco's prone body. "Hey there monster guy. See that troll over there?" I pointed to Ms. Skullnick as Marco dragged himself away.

With unintelligible ramblings, the monsters face lit up and he rushed over to where Ms. Skullnick was waiting.

"Star!" Marco screamed as he tore across the yard, the entire band of monsters chasing him. I figured it was time to help Marco and this party.

"Hey guys! I think you forgot something!" I shouted, channeling energy for a new spell I wanted to try.

The monsters came to a screeching halt and turned to look at me.

"Get the wand!" shouted Ludo.

The monsters all rushed me. I was ready though and unleashed the spell I had been preparing. "Turbo, Nuclear, Butterfly Blast!"

With many rainbows and butterflies, the entire area exploded. When the magic cleared, monsters were scattered everywhere and most things were on fire. All in all, not a bad spell. The charge time was a little long though so I wasn't sure when I would use it again.

"Whoa!" This time however, it was awesome and I was going to revel in it. Sadly, Marco had not escaped the blast. He was heavily singed and there were butterflies all over him. I probably wouldn't use the spell again if he was nearby.

"Get up! Get up!" screamed Ludo as he shook one of his monsters, trying to rouse them to continue fighting.

"Told you I wasn't distracted" I said confidently as I walked up to stand over Ludo. "Wait, did I just kill that guy?"

"No, he's not dead. He's probably just bleeding internally and being a total baby about it." Ludo screamed the last part at his soldier, trying to get him to rise. When that didn't work, he kicked the monster and strode off angrily, pulling out his dimensional scissors.

"Get up you dipsticks!" he cried after opening the portal. With much effort and groaning, the band of monsters peeled themselves out of the ground and trudged over to the portal.

"Oooh, you are so muscly!"

Turning, Marco and I saw Ms. Skullnick walking over arm in arm with the monster I had sent her way.

"Sooo, now that I hooked you up, how 'bout that A?"

"Honey please, I'd give you an A+ if I was still a teacher. I'm setting sail with Captain Triceps here."

"What about my A?" I called out as they walked away.

"Try studying."

"Wah Wah." Marco suddenly felt the need to chime in, adding his views of course.

"Oh hush you!" I told him, punching him in the arm. With a laugh, we both made our way inside to fix my room and get something to eat.

The next day at school, I told everyone the story of how Ms. Skullnick got her new boyfriend, ending the story by saying "So, anyway, long story short, Skullnick ran off with this weird man-bull-guy-thing to another dimension and she is gone forever."

After a brief pause, what was apparently my biggest fan hopped up and said "Star Butterfly rules!" before the rest of the class got up and crowded over to my desk.

"Wow Star that is so rad girl!" said Jackie Lynn Thomas.

Looking over at Marco, I saw that his desk had been shoved aside to make room for everyone around mine. Well that just would not fly, especially with Jackie giving out praises. I needed to get my boy Marco in on this.

"Thanks." I said, squeezing through everyone I made it over to Marco. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the middle of everyone with me. "But actually, it's Marco who deserves aaall the credit."

"Really?" asked Jackie, looking at Marco with respect. Marco on the other hand looked like a deer in headlights. "That's awesome."

Marco let out a nervous laugh as the class started cheering again. I stood off to the side, pleased with myself for helping my bestie. I put my hand on his shoulder and we shared a smile. The moment however was ruined as a portal opened in the ceiling and Ms. Skullnick fell through onto her desk.

"Ms. Skullnick?" asked Marco.

"He dumped me, I think. I don't know! I couldn't understand a word he was saying!"

"Welcome back Skullzers" I said with a nervous twirl of my wand.

Whipping around in fury, Ms. Skullnick pointed to the class and screamed "Get ready for the worst pop quiz of your lives!"

I took my hand off of Marco's shoulder as everyone milled back to their seats. Jackie gave Marco a despairing look before sighing and heading to her seat. Marco reached out for her, weakly, as a sigh escaped him. Marco's desk was angrily kicked back into position and he collapsed into it.

"Sorry Marco, I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of Jackie." I whispered when I saw how sad he seemed.

"Are you kidding?" He said as he turned to face me, suddenly full of excitement. "That's the most she has ever talked to me!"

"Then that means I'm even better at matchmaking than I am at magic!" I said, confidently passing my wand back and forth between my hands. In typical fashion however, that was the moment I lost control of my magic for a split second and blasted Marco's face again. This time when the magic cleared, Marco's head had sprouted butterfly wings, antennae and his eyes had become bug eyes. Also, one of the antennae was burning.

* * *

"So wait, you just left your teacher as a troll?" asked Ruberiot.

"Yeah, I couldn't figure out how to turn her back and she didn't seem to mind that much anymore."

Looking thoughtful, Ruberiot jotted some additional notes on his pad, deep in thought. "What about Marco? When did you fix him?"

"Oh I fixed him immediately." said Star as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Couldn't have him walking around all bug faced now could we?"


	5. School Spirit

"Oh my gosh! I can't wait! I can't wait! My very first pep rally!" I exclaimed, seated beside Marco in the bleachers at school. "I am so exited!"

" _And what is a 'pep rally' exactly?" interjected Ruberiot._

" _It's like a big, school wide party! The whole point is to get everyone excited for some event." explained Star. "This time it was for a sport."_

"When aren't you excited?" asked Marco.

"Shhh!" I told him, placing my finger on his lips. There was no room for that kind of negativity at the pep rally. Principal Skeeves had arrived and was getting ready to speak, it was starting.

"And now, Brittney Wong! Who became head cheerleader on her own and not because her dad made a generous donation to the school!"

After a ball bounced off the principal's head, the cheerleaders came rushing onto the field chanting "Go Echo Creek! Let's try not to get beat!" repeatedly. Carried aloft by some of the members was a girl who looked thoroughly bored with the whole affair. How anyone could be bored at this awesome pep rally, I'll never know.

Using the people who carried her like stairs, the girl, who I assumed was Britteny, walked over to Principal Skeeves and snatched the microphone from his hand before speaking into it. "Make some noise if you love the Awesome Opossums!"

I leapt up with a gasp and screamed "I love opossums! They carry their babies on their backs." Satisfied, I sat back down next to Marco.

"You know she's talking about our football team right?" asked Marco before shuddering and continuing his explanation "We're going up against the Warriors."

"Warriors?"

"Our rivals from Silver Hill Prep" explained Alphonso from the other side of Marco.

"Every year, their team slaughters our guys" continued Marco.

"It's gonna be a bloodbath" Ms. Skullnick added.

" _Oh my, that sounds quite unfortunate for your schoolmates, to lose so many friends each year." Said Ruberiot._

" _Yeah, that was my thought too. I wanted to help change that" Star said, hiding a smile at Ruberiot's nostalgic misunderstanding._

"That's terrible! We must do something." I said, determined to keep Marco from losing any more friends and to restore the honor of the school.

"Well, you could join the spirit committee" suggested Marco, helpful as always. "Those kids are relentless when it comes to supporting the team."

I looked away from Marco to observe the spirit committee out on the field as they cheered on the school's team. He wasn't wrong, they just didn't stop trying to get everyone excited. They seemed like my kind of people.

"What a great idea! We better pick up some supplies." I grabbed Marco and started to drag him with me. Oddly enough, Marco stayed seated.

"As fun as that sounds, you can go without me."

I contemplated his words for a brief moment, a little sad he wasn't coming with me. The feeling soon passed as it was overridden by my excitement for the upcoming engagement. With a short "Okay!" I took off to prepare.

"Hey Skullsy, what's your favorite weapon?" I asked our teacher as I left.

"Battleaxe."

As I ran through the building towards the spirit committee's room, I passed a case full of pictures dedicated to the school's losses in football. I stopped for a moment to pay my respects.

"So many brave young men. So many tragic losses" I said, tears in my eyes. With a gentle breath, I fogged up a small portion of the glass and drew a sad face on it, in remembrance of what had been lost. Seeing such a display had only strengthened my resolve, I couldn't not let what happened so many times in the past happen again.

Suddenly, I noticed Marco next to me, back pressed up against the case. He was smart, a good fighter and knew of the past encounters with the enemy, surely he could provide some insight on how we might be victorious.

"Oh Marco" I sighed, turning to him for guidance. Apparently he had not seen me as he walked up. With a yell, Marco leapt back before losing his balance and tumbling to the ground.

Reaching down to pick him up I asked "How can we prevent another tragic loss to our team?"

"Well, if I knew anything about football, I'd use the element of surprise."

"Of course, of course, of course."

"Spritz 'em! Bring out the kitty cat offence!" Marco had become animated in his explanation, not only giving out great ideas, but reinforcing them with his hand gestures.

"Yes!"

Maybe even throw a couple of big bombs!"

"Bombs!" How could I have missed those, Marco was so good at this. I figured I might have to keep him around if for nothing else than his military prowess. It really was a shame he didn't want to help me on this mission, together we would have been an unstoppable couple.

"Yeah, I've gotta go tell that to the spirit committee. Bye!" I took off running to the room the spirit committee was in again. After seeing the memorial and speaking with Marco, I knew we could with this year.

" _And did you?" interrupted Ruberiot._

" _Oh don't worry, this story has quite the ending, you'll see" Star explained, knowing Ruberiot would be pleased with the outcome of the story._

I quickly arrived at the gymnasium where the spirit committee was holding practice and kicked open the doors. Rushing in I saw some of them holding blobs that looked like potential throwing weapons. Remembering what Marco had said about bombs I stalked over and grabbed one.

"Do these explode?" I asked as I examined the item. I identified what looked like the pin and pulled it, throwing the blob as I did so. It hit one of the other members in the face, but didn't explode. Lucky me, in my haste I had forgotten to look where I was aiming. Grabbing a second blob, I charged magic into my wand and said "Maybe we can set them on fire."

"Uh, we're kind of in the middle of something!"

I knew the voice immediately, it was the leader of the spirit committee from the pep rally. She would know the group's military strength. Turning, I pointed my wand at her as I prepared to get caught up to speed.

"You're the leader! What's the plan?"

She laughed at me before she began her explanation. "This year, we have a secret weapon." Snapping her fingers, two other girls walked up behind her and they all started dancing as she continued. "We're gonna distract them with our booty shaking dance moves."

As I watched, I felt my face redden as I imagined doing a dance like theirs, especially with Marco watching. Snapping out of it, I yelled at the dancers, "Do you know nothing of combat? No warrior is gonna be distracted by Chantelle's booty!" I gestured to the least impressive dancer.

"Lucky for you, my mom assigned the royal guards as my babysitters" I explained confidently.

" _Wait a second, she did what?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Oh yeah, she was always super busy, so she routinely left me with the guards" explained Star. "One time, I was with one of them and he took my doll to show me how to kill something. I remember his words clearly. He told me_ You know you've done it right, when you hear the neck snap. _He then twisted the head off of my doll."_

" _Really? And you kept going back?"_

" _Why wouldn't I? I loved it and wanted them to show me more!"_

" _That might explain a lot" murmured Ruberiot to himself._

" _What?"_

" _Nothing, continue with the story, I'm curious about the upcoming battle" said Ruberiot._

"I know on Planet 'Mooni' or wherever it is you are from, it may be okay to be stupid, but no pesky, magical foreigner is gonna question my leadership! You are officially banned from the spirit committee!" yelled Brittney, suddenly angry.

"Fine!" I had no idea what had gotten her so upset, I was trying to offer the help of a warrior princess who had been raised by warriors. Nonetheless, I knew her and her group would be useless in the coming battle. I said to myself, "Looks like it's all up to me."

"Okay! Thanks for coming out!" suddenly blasted through my head. Brittney had gotten a megaphone and spoke directly into my ear. "Come back, never!" she continued as I stalked off.

I wandered the school, looking for allies and weapons, finding neither. I was still a little bummed about missing my greatest ally, Marco, when I came upon a dumpster. I walked up to it, hoping for inspiration. In the bottom of the dumpster were 4 mangy cats, bringing my general's words to mind.

"You guys ready to be part of my kitty cat offence?" I asked, leaning in closer. They seemed uninterested and continued eating whatever it was they had. I however, was not about to be dissuaded, Marco's advice was not to be taken lightly. "Fine. Then I guess we gotta do this the hard way."

Climbing up onto the edge, I threw myself into the dumpster with a battle cry of "Kitty!"

The battle was fierce. They did not want to cooperate, and I could not hurt them too badly if I planned to use them in the upcoming battle. With much yowling, we shook the dumpster as I wrangled the cats. One of them even tried to escape before I pulled it back in and busted out my magic, finally getting them under control.

By this time, school was over and I need to take the cats to Marco's home for the next step of my plan. After dropping the cats off, I went out to gather more animals. At one point I was crawling along a hanging cable when I noticed the light in Marco's room was on.

"Marco!" I shrieked to get his attention. When he arrived, I had a squirrel by the tail and a question on my lips. "Hey Marco! Do you have any highly flammable liquids?"

"I don't know. Check the garage."

"Cool, thanks!" I just knew he was going to love my plan. With a smile I dropped from the cable, bringing the squirrel with me as I went to the garage.

Once all of the preparations were made at Marco's home, I transported the animals to the battlefield and finished my preparations. After setting everything up, I went off to get changed into my armor. By the time I finished changing, everyone had arrived and it looked like things were about to get started. I went to find Marco to regroup beforehand.

I let out a war cry as I came up behind him and Ferguson. I didn't think they looked dressed for war, especially Marco, but I was not about to question Earth combat strategies. They had already proven strange enough as it was. With a scream, both boys leapt back from me and fell down.

"Who's ready for a bloody, bloody, bloodbath?" I asked, slamming my mace into the ground and laughing.

"What's with that crazed look in your eyes?" asked Marco as he stood back up.

"What do you mean?" I was seeing red and was ready to get started.

"Watch Ferguson, I need to talk to princess cuckoo-pants." Marco grabbed my wrist and started to drag me off somewhere quieter.

"Okay Star, what are you up to?"

"Exactly what you said." With a grunt I lifted my mace onto my shoulder and smiled. "I booby trapped the battlefield."

"What?" screamed Marco as he realized what I had done. Apparently there had been a mistake.

I saw him take another look at the battlefield that lay before us, now noticing all of my cleverly hidden traps. "Star! The warriors weren't actually going to kill our team! They were just gonna beat them in football! Which is a game!"

" _Uh oh" said Ruberiot, "I think I know where this is going."_

" _Quite, I made the same mistake you did Ruberiot" Star explained, "Only I actually did something. Really 'Starred' that one up."_

" _If it makes you feel better, I would have done much the same."_

" _You only say that because you don't yet know what a magical princess on a warpath can do. But don't worry, you are about to find out."_

My confident smile slowly turned into a frown, Marco was yelling, that was how I knew I had royally messed up. Before I could even start to fix my mistake, the starting whistle blew and the players started running to the ball. The ball that was placed on a magical land mine.

When the enemy team kicked the ball, it set off the mine. A rainbow explosion engulfed the Warriors as the ball sailed through the air. When the Opossums caught the ball, they started screaming and took off running. It was only a short time until the spectators panicked as well.

Looking around, I saw my traps doing exactly what I had set them up to do. One player was getting dragged into a swirling portal, his fingers leaving furrows in the ground as he tried to resist its pull. As he got sucked in, I saw one of the spirit committee run across another land mine and was sent soaring in another rainbow explosion.

"Oh no, everything is going according to plan" I said, starting to freak out.

The referee ran across the field, blowing his whistle before falling over a tripwire. With a puff of smoke, the ground raised to reveal a pit I had dug underneath. From the hole burst forth my masterpieces. I had magically enhanced the creatures I had spent the afternoon gathering. There were man eating moths and glowing squirrels, both many times larger than normal on Earth.

Then, in a burst of flame, 3 hellcats leapt forth. I had modified the mangy cats from the dumpster into enormous, flaming, three eyed beasts of war.

"Let me guess, the kitty cat offence?" asked Marco.

All I could do was smile and laugh nervously. Yeah, he was upset. In fact he seemed like he had gone past upset, like Mom sometimes does. Suffice to say, I was in big trouble.

"We have to do something!" yelled Marco as we watched the chaos that had engulfed the field.

Marco took off running to help some people who were being chased by a giant squirrel while I looked around to see who needed help the most. After a quick moment of indecision I took off running, barely remembering to grab my mace and take it with me.

Marco made it behind the squirrel, intent on capturing its prey before Marco stomped on its tail. When the squirrel fell over, Marco leapt over it and assumed a fighting pose. Before the squirrel could attack, Marco kicked it three times and sent it flying.

I had run over to help keep another player from getting sucked into the portal I had made. Out of the corner of my eye as I was pulling him out though, I saw Marco get jumped from behind by the squirrel. With a cry, I took off running to help.

" _Uh, what about the person in the portal?" asked Ruberiot._

" _In my haste to help Marco, I completely forgot about him and let go." Replied Star bashfully._

As I ran towards Marco, I slammed my mace into the ground, using that to launch myself into the air. Nearing the top of my jump I transformed my mace back into my wand and aiming at the squirrel cast a spell on it.

"Mending, Heart Hurricane!" I shouted, unleashing the magic upon the beast. When it was struck by the magic, the giant, magical squirrel broke apart into multiple Earth squirrels who sat stunned on the ground. After a short pause, they all scattered except one that continued to gnaw on Marco's head for a short time before running off as well.

Suddenly, the spirit committee rushed past us. Brittney came from behind them, shoving people out of her way. Soon she had tossed the rest of the spirit committee aside and was running free, until a giant ground dragon burst forth from beneath her. It snatched her up in its jaws before tossing her into the air and swallowing her whole. As unhelpful and rude as she had been earlier, I still knew I needed to go save her.

"Mending, Heart Hurricane!" I cast again, this time at the dragon. When it was struck by the spell, the dragon burst apart into the hundreds of bugs I had used to make it. Brittney dropped to the ground with them.

Turning, I saw Marco engage the hellcats. Leaping from behind two that were stalking some of the Warriors, he jumped and kicked both cats in the head. As the third ran up from behind him, I readied a spell in case he didn't see it. My concern, as it usually is, was unneeded. Marco turned to face the beast and kicked it away when it pounced at him.

However, things took a turn for the worse as the cats regrouped and charged. As Marco got ready to engage them, two more of the giant squirrels came up from behind him. I leapt into action, the spell already prepared from earlier.

"Nuclear, Heart Healing, Hurricane!" I shouted as I leapt to where Marco stood. The magic discharged around us in a flash. When the light faded, all that were left were the mangy cats and normal Earth squirrels I had started with, all of whom quickly scattered.

With those taken care of Marco and I started rounding up the rest of the creatures that were on the field. After one such fix, we hear a voice call out to us. Turning, we saw Ferguson running towards us from across the field.

"Hey! Marco! You were right! They were trying to kidnap me!"

"Ferguson! Get off the field!"

"What? I can't hear you through all the explosions" screamed Ferguson, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in. Then he stepped on a mine. It exploded with a blast of hearts, covering Ferguson in orange smoke. When the smoke cleared, Ferguson was laying on the ground, unmoving.

"Ferguson!" Marco yelled as he ran to Ferguson's body and pulling him into a hug. "No buddy! I'm sorry! I failed you. Forgive me."

"Dude, I was just playing opossum!" said Ferguson as he snapped his eyes open and smiled.

"Huh?"

"It's what we do!"

"You're alive!" Marco's face of relief quickly transformed into anger however and he started shaking Ferguson roughly. "This is why you only have two friends!"

Fortunately the last of my spells wore off at that point and all the portals on the field vanished. Doubly lucky, the Warriors who had been sucked into them came crawling out of pits in the field.

"I really messed up" I said to myself as I surveyed the battlefield.

"You mean WE really messed up." Marco's voice came from behind me and I turned to see him timidly approach. He placed a hand on my shoulder and explained "I should have been watching out for you."

I smiled at him, thankful for his kindness and reassurance. He had really helped alleviate my stress from the incident in a way only he knew how.

"Let's get out of here!" came a cry from behind us, ruining the moment. Turning, Marco and I saw all of the Warriors pile into their bus before taking off into the night.

"Hey, they just forfeited. We win!" exclaimed one of our players.

After a brief moment, all of the spectators who were still hiding in the now ruined stands jumped to their feet and cheered as the football team danced with joy. Running over, they lifted Marco and I onto their shoulders in thanks. I got caught up in the moment and forgetting my mistake for a brief time joined in the cheering.

Then, the weirdest feeling came over me. Chewing on my wand thoughtfully I spoke aloud to myself, "Huh, why do I have this weird feeling I'm forgetting something?"

At that moment, a giant bird I had made came swooping in and snatched up Marco. That was it.

I quickly leapt to the ground and took off in pursuit.

"Star!" Marco down called to me.

"Don't worry Marco, I got this!" Taking aim I leapt into the air and aimed at the monster before firing off some magic. ""Mending, Heart Hurricane!" I shouted as I loosed the blast. It hit the monster dead on and it untransformed back into multiple Earth birds.

These birds however were unable to carry Marco and he plummeted towards the ground. Fortunately I managed to catch him in midair where we tumbled to the ground uninjured. Extracting myself from his body, I stood up before helping him rise.

"Thanks Star."

"No problem, you know what we need?" I asked.

"Nachos!" we said in unison, laughing as we turned to head back to Marco's house.


	6. Monster Arm

One day, I was strolling around the Diaz's home, singing to myself, and passed the open door to Marco's room. As I did, I saw him almost kneeling with his back to the door. Stopping myself, I looked in to see what was going on. Marco has some strange white outfit on with a green belt around his waist as he stood above a piece of wood suspended on some blocks.

With a mighty yell, he raised his arm up and struck at the wood, breaking it. I called out to him, "Whoa! You hate wood too? Yeah, crush that wood! Wood is the worst!"

"No, I'm practicing for my upcoming Tang Soo Do tournament."

"Oh." I assumed it was his karate thing but was more focused on the fact that Marco did not share my hatred of wood.

"You see Star, martial arts is all about honor and discipline" he explained, seeing that I was lost. "Which is why… I'm gonna kick Jeremy Birnbaum's butt!"

"Jeremy Birnbaum? Isn't that the talking bear that used to rummage through my parent's garbage?"

"He's just this creep in my dojo who's only any good cuz his rich parents buy him fancy equipment and private lessons!"

Wow, Marco must have some serious beef with this guy.

"But Saturday, he's gonna get a taste of this!" Marco exclaimed as he reached down and placed three planks where the one had sat prior. Marco let loose a scream as he swung down to chop the boards. When he connected however, it wasn't the boards that broke, but Marco's arm. He let out a wail as I went to go find his parents.

" _So it turns out the Earth Medicine is very different from Mewni medicine" explained Star._

" _How so? Our's seems to work."_

" _Well on Earth, what they did was put Marco through this machine which the Diaz's tried to convince me wasn't going to eat him and had to hold me back from running in to save him. When he came out, the doctor had pictures of Marco's bones."_

 _Ruberiot raised his hand._

" _And no I don't know how it works."_

 _Ruberiot lowered his hand._

" _They say there is no magic on Earth, but I am not sure. Anyways, after this 'x-ray' the doctor took Marco away to get a 'cast'. When Marco returned, his arm was in a huge, hard bandage."_

" _Well isn't that strange, did it work?" asked Ruberiot._

 _Smiling sheepishly, Star answered "Eventually."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _You'll see soon enough."_

The entire ride back from the doctor, I couldn't stay off of him. I was incredibly interested in this cast and was bombarding him with questions as I attempted to poke it. By the time we arrived to his home, he was thoroughly tired with my questions and had me go get some markers. When I returned, he explained to me that I could draw on the cast due to the hard outer shell. Well, that shut me up for quite a while and let me get over my curiosity at the same time. He knows me so well.

As I went to go play with my hair, Marco came and laid on my bed, right where I sleep.

"Ugh! This is a nightmare. If I can't fight Jeremy, he'll say I wussed out and he'll never let me live it down" he said dejectedly.

I on the other hand was in high spirits as I swapped between hair styles. "Pigtails? Ponytail? Pigtails? Ponytail?" I asked, half listening to his woes as I used my wand to swap between the two styles.

"Wait a minute! You have a wand!" exclaimed Marco suddenly. "You can just fix my hand!"

Turning to face him, I tried to explain why that was a bad idea, but nicely. "You know, that sorta spell's not really in my comfort zone. But if you like, I can give you a pretty wicked set of pigtails!"

"Pigtails!" Marco sighed as he flopped backwards onto my bad again.

I had thought it was a great idea, he'd probably look great in them. Or maybe a ponytail. Yeah, defiantly ponytail for Marco, I needed to save that idea for later.

Glancing around, I tried to come up with some way to cheer him up. I couldn't leave my besty all sad. Then I remembered my spell book! It had to have something in it to help.

"I could look up a bone healing spell in the magic instruction book that came with the wand" I told Marco. I ran to where he lay and thrust his legs apart where they dangled over the edge of my bed. Reaching down, I grabbed the spell book and dragged it out from under my bed into the middle of my room.

"What? This whole time you had a magic instruction book?"

"Yup! Whenever a previous owner of the wand mastered a spell, they scribbled it down in here!" I reached around to the clasp and loosened it as I opened the book to a random page. Dust and bugs flew out of it as I did, causing me to cough a little. "But it's a complete, disorganized mess. It's gonna take me forever to find- Oh, here it is!"

Talk about luck, I had found it after flipping only a page or two.

"It's in an ancient language." I explained to Marco as I looked at the page. I didn't know what it said, but the pictures looked like a bone was being healed, so it must be right. I prepared to cast the spell by learning the pronunciations and charging the magic into my wand.

"Releasio, Demonius, Investica!" I exclaimed as the magic spiraled out from my wand into Marco's arm.

"I can feel it working! My fingers are tingling!" shouted Marco as the spell took hold. In a flash of light, the spell completed. When the light faded, Marco's arm was no longer broken. Unfortunately it had also turned into a tentacle.

"Don't worry!" I told Marco as he screamed at his new appendage. "There must be a spell in here that can change it back!"

I started frantically flipping pages, skimming for some way to fix him. Marco meanwhile sat staring in horror at his new arm. Suddenly the arm whipped around and hit the spell book. It was sent flying out the window.

I took off to go find the book, leaving Marco gaping at his arm. By the time I found it, it was late at night and it was even later by the time I dragged the massive thing back to my room. Marco hadn't moved. When I returned, I told him "Go to bed, you look traumatized and exhausted, I'll have a spell for you in the morning."

Nodding numbly, Marco walked off to his room with the arm flailing about everywhere. Cracking open the book, I got looking for some way to fix him. The night stretched on as an answer eluded me. Half the spells were in other languages, making the task all the slower. If only I had spent more time learning from the book before this emergency.

By the time the sun rose, I was dead tired and no closer to a solution than I had been when I started. After getting dressed, I made my way downstairs for breakfast and to see if Marco had gotten control of the monster arm. There was a mess everywhere and Marco looked decidedly unhappy, so it looked like it was still pretty independent.

I sat down in front of my food and with a yawn said "Morning Marco, morning monster arm. I was up all night but I haven't found a way to reverse the spell."

The monster arm slammed down on the table in front of me and grabbed my drink. Picking up the glass, the arm upended the drink over Marco's head, soaking him.

"So breakfast isn't working, do you want to just head to school?" I asked.

"Yeah" Marco said with a defeated sigh.

"Ok, I'll go get our bags."

As we made our way to school and even throughout classes, the monster arm wouldn't behave. It didn't destroy anything like it had that morning, but was constantly getting in the way of everyone, especially poor Marco.

By lunch time, he had gotten better at predicting its mischief and was constantly moving his lunch tray out of the way of the tentacle, an annoyed look plastered on his face. We suddenly heard the deep voice of the bully Lars ring out across the lunchroom as he tormented his latest target.

"Hey kid! I gotta joke for you. What's the most important meal of the day?" he sneered, leaning over a smaller kid. Smashing the lunch tray from the kid's hands, he shouted "its breakfast!" 

"That's a good one Lars" said the other kid, chuckling along to placate the bully. As he reached down to pick up his food, Lars slammed his face down into the mess and started laughing again.

Enraged I started to channel magic into my wand, but due to my exhaustion, it was slow going. Before I could blast the bully, Marco's monster arm lashed out and struck Lars across the face. Everyone watching the scene gasped. I lowered my wand, the magic forgotten in my shock.

"Who did that?" growled Lars as he spun around.

Marco pointed to his monster arm and stuttered, sure he was about to be beaten senseless.

Readying a fist, Lars growled at Marco "No one hits La-"

His threat was interrupted as the tentacle slapped him again. Before he could recover, the tentacle struck another time, and then again. After hitting Lars another five or six times it stopped. Reaching up to where he had been struck, Lars burst out into tears before running off.

The previously destructive monster arm then extended itself as it reached out and picked up the victim of the bully. Setting him on his feet, the arm wiped the mess from the kid and flung it aside.

"I sir am in your debt" the kid told Marco with a small bow.

Slamming him aside, Ferguson ran over to Marco and exclaimed "You're a hero!"

The cafeteria broke out into cheers as Jackie Lynn Thomas asked Marco if she could check out his arm.

"Uhhh, sure" he said nervously as he extended it towards her and her two friends.

"I want it to be my boyfriend!" said Janna excitedly.

"Me too" said the other girl as they moved closer to inspect it.

"High five!" said Jackie as she played with the end.

Marco's discomfort visibly turned to joy as he relaxed and started to enjoy the tension. I however had a horrible twisting in my gut, the monster arm needed to go.

With his newfound hero status, Marco spent the rest of the day surrounded by classmates as they looked over the arm. The feeling of dread was still there for me and I knew I needed to stay close to make sure nothing went wrong. I was too tired though from the night before and ended up spending the rest of the day either napping or trying to stay awake in class.

After school when I had Marco to myself again, I had him go lay on my bed where I could keep an eye on him and the tentacle while I looked for a solution. It was late into the night when I found what I was looking for, the moon well above the horizon.

"Ah ha! I found it! A reverse tentacle spell… I think."

"Uhhh, maybe you should practice on something first." Said Marco as he played with the tentacle. It had been behaving since the incident at lunch, but I still wanted it gone, there was just something about it that I didn't like.

"Way ahead of you" I said as I reached beneath my table and pulled out a plant to try the spell on. Channeling the magic for the spell, I cried out "Returnio, Armius, Normalmiticus!"

Is a flash of light, the magic covered the plant. When it faded, all that was left was the stalk and a skull in the smoke rising from the remains. Marco and I had similar looks of terror plastered to our faces, imagining what might have happened if I had just tried to use the spell on him.

"Uh, I'm going to bed now" said Marco, unease evident in his voice.

It was probably for the best, I was going to be at this for a while and he didn't need to see any more failures. I watched with concern as he almost fled the room. Pulling out another practice plant I called out "Don't worry, I'll get it! Returnius, Armius, Normalritti!"

This time the plant exploded, my face of concern transformed into one of fear. I knew I had another long night ahead of me. Grateful for the bits of sleep I had gotten at school, I pulled out another plant. 

"Returnico, Armius, Normalico!" I cried, hoping for a better result. It was worse.

I worked through the night, trying all kinds of variations of the spell, sure I was just off by a syllable or two. By the time morning rolled around, I had had some pretty spectacular failures. I had turned one into a head of some sort, I think, another was a bunch of hands, sprouting from the palm of the hand beneath it. One had turned the pot itself into a leg. Another had made fingers sprout from the center of flowers. All better than my initial attempts, but none good enough. I was nearing the limit on my exhaustion, but Marco needed my help and so I powered on.

"Returnio, Armius, Normalrino." I mumbled, barely awake. With a blast the plant vanished, and from the soil rose a normal hand. I gasped at the hand as it rose and once it reached full height, it gave me a thumbs up.

"Marco!" I shouted, running off to tell him I had succeeded. I stopped to turn and grab the success, bringing it with me to show him.

Rushing into his room, I held the plant out before me, "I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it!"

Marco was balancing on the monster arm as it held him up in an impressive display of strength. "Hey, I think this monster arm might actually help me take out Jeremy" he said, hopping down to his feet in front of a large pile of boards.

With a scream, Marco brought the monster arm down on the boards, not only breaking them, but also the blocks holding them up. Marco stood panting, a feral look on his face.

"Wait, you're gonna fight with that?" I asked, holding up the potted arm, it helpfully pointed to the monster arm. "That sounds kinda unfair."

Marco whipped his head around and stared at me angrily before stalking towards me and saying "Oh, funny how you never have a problem using your magic when it benefits you, but as soon as it gives me an advantage, you wanna take it away!"

I was too tired to go into all of the details of why he was wrong, plus I knew that that wasn't Marco speaking. Instead, I cut to the heart of the matter, the monster arm. "Marco, I think that arm is a bad influence on you."

"And I think you should go."

"What?" I exclaimed as the tentacle spun me around, pushed me out of Marco's room and slammed the door in my face.

Steaming, I took the arm plant and stalked back to my room, if he didn't want my help, then fine, he could keep the arm. I went to my room so I could nap before the tournament. Everyone else might like the tentacle, but I knew it needed to go. Marco wasn't going to the tournament unsupervised.

With a start I rose to the sound of my alarm. I was running late and Marco had already left. I hurried as fast as my exhausted feet could carry me to the dojo, the place Marco trains, and made my way to Ferguson and Alphonso in the stands.

"Are you okay Star?" asked Alphonso when I finally shouldered through the crowd. It seemed like a lot of our classmates wanted to see the monster arm in action again.

"You look terrible! And I have very low standards." said Ferguson.

I felt terrible. I leaned on the person next to me for support, the run over had taken a lot more out of me than I had anticipated. Stretching, I explained "I've been up for two nights tryin to fix this monster arm, then he gets mad. Then I gotta come here and watch him karate."

"Allow me to introduce our first competitor, Jeremy Birnbaum!" said the man who appeared to be Marco's teacher as he gestured to one side of the fighting area.

The person was tall and shrouded in a cloak, a butler serving him water while another rubbed his shoulders. With a cry, he threw up his arms, throwing both cloak and servants to the ground. The person underneath turned out to be a scrawny little kid, standing on a stool.

"That's Jeremy!" I exclaimed. I couldn't believe it. Marco was worried about someone half his size. This was the same Marco who had fought a band of monsters with me and easily defeated them. All of that trouble for this runt. After my initial shock wore away, I realized I simply too tired to care anymore.

With a start, I jolted awake as someone threw water into my face. I heard Marco yelling my name and I quickly took stock of the situation. I may not have been a master of magic, but I had been battling my whole life. I saw Jeremy passed out on the other side of the room as everyone watched Marco fight his monster arm in shocked awe.

I had been right, I knew it needed to go. Scrambling, I reached down and picked up my wand and shouted "Returnio, Armius, Normalrino!" firing the spell at Marco.

Before it hit him however, the arm dragged itself and Marco out of the way, causing it to hit a punching bag behind them. Taking aim, I fired again, and again the spell was dodged. I refused to be deterred, Marco needed me, and kept firing with no success.

"I could do this all day!" taunted the monster arm.

"He's too wiggly!" I cried to Marco in frustration.

As I watched, I saw an idea form in Marco's eyes. He leapt off the ceiling where the monster arm had him hanging, and threw himself to the floor where many hand form my misses reached up towards him. When he thumped to the ground, the arms from my misses latched on to the monster arm, holding it in place.

"Now!" cried Marco.

"Returnio, Armius, Normalrino!" I cried, leaping into the air and firing off the spell.

This time the spell hit, and the arm started to change back. As it did, it cried out its final words "You'll never get rid of me! I'm part of you now! You can treat the symptoms but you'll never cure the virus!"

" _Ominous" observed Ruberiot._

" _Quite" Star agreed. "I've been keeping an eye out for it, and the spell ready just in case it ever comes back."_

" _And it hasn't?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Not yet" explained Star, "I hope to keep it that way."_

When Marco's arm finally returned to normal, he laid on the ground and groaned as Alfonso, Ferguson, and I ran over to check on him.

"Marco, are you okay?" I asked when we got to him.

Marco held up his arm and examined it before proclaiming "My arm! My beautiful arm! Its back to normal!"

That was when we learned that it was still broken. Marco groaned as he bent over, clutching it to himself.

"Broken arm? Ha! Well it looks like I win!"

Oh lord, it was Jeremy, finally recovered. I was about to blast him, as much for my sake as Marcos, when suddenly something fell out of his gloves.

One of the many hands I had created earlier picked it up and held it up in front of Sensei. Pushing it out of the way, he turned to Jeremy "Brass knuckles, seriously?"

"Pft, brass? They're gold." Said Jeremy, no apology evident.

"You boys have brought shame and dishonor to this great and noble sport. Tis a sad day for strip mall dojo's everywhere" said Sensei before stalking off angrily.

Kicking aside some of the appendages scattered about, Jeremy followed Sensei. His parents stood at the door and his mother was clapping encouragement. Stopping, he looked at her and said "I wish I could fight you Mom" before stomping away.

"What a turd." Said Ferguson as we all watched him leave.

"Sorry. I shoulda listened to you Star" Marco told me, regret showing clearly.

"I know." I reached over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, pleased that he was back to himself.

"Hey, um, when the monster arm said he'd be back, that's nothing to worry about right?" asked Marco with a nervous chuckle.

"Uhhh, probably not?"

He didn't seem to like that answer.


	7. The other Exchange Student

The day started out wonderfully, just like every other since I arrived on Earth. Hopping out of bed, I made my way downstairs, still in my pajamas. Yawning as I descended, I heard the Diaz family yell out "Surprise! Happy 47th day on Earth Star!"

Little, winged hearts burst from my wand as I gushed at how amazing the Diaz family was. I ran over to them exclaiming, "A party? For me? I can't believe it!"

"You can't? We've done this every day since you got here" said Marco.

I wasn't going to let his adorable naiveté ruin the celebration and instead of answering him, I turned to his parents.

"Here Star" said Mr. Diaz as he held a cake with my likeness out towards me, "I made you a cake."

"And I wrote you a poem" said Mrs. Diaz. "Our lives, were so small and puny, till this angel arrived from Mewni."

I was fanning myself with my hands, both to stop the tears and contain my happiness as she read the beautiful poem. Everything these two made was beautiful.

"Thank goodness" said Marco when the doorbell rang.

I paid him no mind as I enjoyed the small celebration, leaving him to get the door. I barely heard him open the door, but I did hear what followed. I always try to listen a bit when Marco talks, just to make sure he doesn't need my help of course.

"Hello!" exclaimed an unknown voice. "It is I Gustav!"

"No… way!" exclaimed Marco, all of a sudden he was incredibly excited.

"Marco! My American friend!"

During this exchange, Marco's parents were still focused on my little celebration. They had tied a cut, purple balloon to my wrist, sliced some of the cake and were handing me the slice when Marco called out to us.

"Look who's here!"

With a gasp, they turned and ran over to this Gustav, leaving me alone and without cake.

"What a wonderful surprise!" exclaimed Mr. Diaz.

"We missed you so much." Said Mrs. Diaz as they both pulled him into a hug.

Stepping forward I tried to not let my confusion and nervousness show. I failed miserably. "Uhm, hi?"

"Oh hello. I am Gustav. I hosted as the Diaz's exchange student last year" Gustav explained.

"What? But I thought I was your one and only foreign exchange student!" I exclaimed.

* * *

" _So they had seen magic before? I thought you said it was new to them" asked Ruberiot._

" _They hadn't, apparently on Earth, different countries sometimes send over students to learn." Explained Star. "But it's different than here. On Earth you go for the culture, not because the school teaches what you are trying to learn."_

" _Weird."_

" _I know, apparently they have lots of schools everywhere on Earth."_

* * *

"Not even close" said Marco as he gestured to the wall behind me. "I mean who did you think all of these kids were?"

I turned to look at where he was pointing. It was wall I had seen many times before. There were pictures of all kinds of kids on the wall, and some of the pictures had Marco in them too. The first picture I noticed was of a blonde girl kissing Marco on the cheek. After he pointed it out, it always seems to catch my eye. I had always thought they were Marco's family, how was I supposed to know better?

Further study of the wall was interrupted as Gustav took command of everyone's attention again. "I brought gifts from Scandinavia! For Mrs. D, a pair of clogs! For Marco, the handheld game, Lederhosen Tycoon! And for Mr. Diaz, a genuine Viking helmet!"

With a gasp of glee, Mr. Diaz put the helmet on and head butted the wall, embedding the horns. Maybe Gustav wasn't going to be so bad I thought as he leaned towards me with his bag.

"And for you, nothing! I did not know you existed!" I was wrong, he needed to go. With a chuckle, he turned back to my host family. "Oh! Mrs. D, you've gotten so thin! I need to fatten you up. Come everyone, I will cook you my meatballs!"

Taking Mrs. Diaz and Marco by the shoulders, he led the family to the kitchen, leaving me in the doorway. Alone. My balloon deflated, matching my mood. I stalked upstairs to get dressed as Gustav started doing his thing in the kitchen.

When I finally made it downstairs, having spent a little extra time getting dressed than was strictly needed, Gustav was in the middle of a story. No one had even noticed I was gone it seemed. With a sigh, I pulled out a bar stool and sat next to Marco as I tuned in to the story.

"The Scandinavian monsoons were over, but the danger had just begun! The iceberg was sinking. Heedless of my own peril, I disrobed! I dove into the freezing fjord and I carried Yeorgi back to his mother!"

The Diaz family seemed blown away, I however was unimpressed. I could do that too, and better, even without my wand.

"Marco! Think fast!" Gustav suddenly exclaimed, throwing an uncooked meatball at Marco.

He leapt into action, catching the meatball in his mouth. It was an impressive display of dexterity, but I was already tired of the Gustav distraction. I didn't like him. He also seemed very suspicious. Constantly fighting monsters has trained my gut to recognize suspicious people, and something was telling me he needed to go.

"So, Gustav, where exactly are you from?"

"How much do you know about Europe?"

"I know it's a place, I'm pretty sure."

Oh! Well then. I come from the country of Scandinavia. It is the land where Vikings teach gym class and everyone has a pet penguin. Even if you don't like penguins. Whoop, too bad, here's your penguin."

"Hey Gustav, I'm open! Meatball me!" Marco interjected, cutting off any more tales from Gustav. As I stood, processing all of the information, Gustav scooped the stirring spoon into the raw meat and threw a meatball at Marco. Using his amazing karate reflexes, Marco managed to leap up and catch it in his mouth even though it went wide.

"Oh! Now me Gustav, now me!" shouted Mr. Diaz in excitement.

Gustav tossed three meatballs to Mr. Diaz. He caught two on the horns of his helmet and the third in his mouth while Marco cheered.

"Are you sure those are cooked?" I knew Earth was weird, but I hadn't seen Gustav even cast a spell on the meat to cook it and it seemed very dubious.

Gustav made his way over to the family and basically had them eating out of the palm of his hand. Mr. Diaz was picking meatballs up off the floor and Mrs. Diaz was clamoring for Gustav's attention as she tried to get more meatballs.

Marco was the worst though. With tears of joy and meatballs raining down around him, he exclaimed "Just think! Three more weeks of this!"

Three more weeks! No way was that going to happen, I wanted him gone immediately. I went up to my room, partly to plan and partly to get away from the Gustav madness. I sat in my room all day, trying to think of some way to get rid of him.

The hard part was finding a way to do it where Marco wouldn't be angry at me and that he couldn't come back. It would be easy enough to blast Gustav with magic, but then he would just return. If I turned him into a bunny or something, Marco would just make me change him back. I had to do this Earth girl style.

I eventually fell asleep after long hours of thinking. I had nothing on the guy, no way to get him to leave and stay gone. As I went to bed, I resolved to pay close attention to him. Plus, there was always the chance he would not be as bad in the morning.

The next morning I woke up feeling great. I hopped out of bed and headed downstairs for my cute little party. As I walked down the stairs, I yawned and as I neared the bottom steps I heard the Diaz family shout out "Surprise!"

I let out a squeal, my earlier sadness forgotten. "A party, for m-"

"Happy second day of your visit Gustav!" shouted the Diaz family.

And it was back, this time with a vengeance.

"Oh Diaz family, you are so full of pleasantness!" said Gustav as he walked over to them.

"Gustav! Gustav! Gustav! Gustav!" chanted the Diaz's as I moved to sit on the couch.

I plopped onto the couch angrily next to Gustav's bag. My disturbance caused his bag to flop over onto the floor and I turned to glare at it. At least Marco wouldn't notice this anger.

When I looked at the bag however, my anger turned to confusion. From the top of Gustav's bag had spilled two books and a map. The books were titled "Scandinavian for Dummies" and "Customs of Scandinavia." I picked up Scandinavian for dummies and looked at it, thoroughly confused.

"Oh look at you. Such a curious girl!" Gustav snatched the book out of my hands, replacing it with a slice of cake as he repacked his bag. He then turned to me with a terrifying face and told me "Now eat your cake and mind your own business."

"Uhhh, okay" I said slowly, still processing everything that had just happened.

"More cake for everyone!" Gustav shouted, running back to Mr. and Mrs. Diaz.

Then it hit me, Marco needed to know. I fetched Marco over to where I was seated. He looked at me confused, cake still in his mouth. "Marco, listen! I think there is something off about Gustav."

I released his arm and let him drop onto the couch next to me as I continued. "I found Scandinavian books and language tapes in his bag. Why would someone need to learn his own language! And why is he always makin meatballs? Meatballs aren't so great! I can make things too!"

I pulled out my wand and conjured up a little spider with a top hat before turning to pout.

After the spider scuttled away, Marco leaned over and taunted me, "Uh, jealous much?"

I turned back to him to protest. There was no way I was jealous that he was spending all of his time with Gustav and basically ignoring me. Nor was I jealous that he seemed to like Gustav more than me. I wasn't even jealous about how close the two seemed to be. The nerve of some people!

* * *

 _Star had to stop and take a few deep breaths from having worked herself into a frenzy._

" _Uhhh" Ruberiot started, "didn't Marco just imply you were jealous?"_

" _What are you saying?" snapped Star, a dangerous look in her eye._

" _Uh, nothing"_

 _Star gave him a cross look before murmuring to herself. Ruberiot thought he heard her say "That's what I thought" before she launched back into her tale._

* * *

"Hey Marco! Think fast!" yelled Gustav, cutting off my defense and the conversation as Marco leapt into the air to catch the meatball that had been thrown his way.

"I hope he never leaves" exclaimed Marco around his mouthful of meatball.

He got up to go join Gustav and his parents, leaving me on the couch alone, sad, and slightly disgusted. I watched them play, but started noticing new things too, malicious things. I watched Gustav shove an entire slice of cake into Mrs. Diaz's mouth while he grinned wickedly at me.

Shuddering, I knew what I had to do. He was up to no good, and I was going to find out what it was. Later that evening as I was tailing him, I saw him pull out his phone and after looking around himself, he ducked into a closet. Definitely suspicious. I snapped a picture with my camera as he entered.

After his call, I followed him out to the garage where I hid behind a stack of tired with my pencil and paper. As I watched, he pulled an axe down from the wall and gave it a few experimental swings before shoving it into his bag.

Next he went inside and I pulled out my binoculars to watch him from the safety of the trees outside. I saw him putting some strange material into the meat he used for meatballs as he glanced around nervously. I turned to scan the area as well through my binoculars. When I turned to my left, one of the monsters in Ludo's army was in the tree with me, watching me through his own pair of binoculars.

After the monster quickly retreated through the portal, I followed Gustav as he made his way upstairs. I saw him enter the room of Mr. and Mrs. Diaz and I snuck in behind him. I saw him pull a tape measure from his pack and start taking measurements of each family member.

Gustav went to his room after that and I went up to my room. I still had work to do. I printed out all of the pictures I had taken and stuck them onto my wall with my notes. I continued this trend for the next few days, amassing a wealth of knowledge. Then one morning, things changed.

"Oh Star! We're about to-" Marco said, breaking me from my thoughts. Before he could finish his statement, I opened the door of my room and pulled him inside.

"What's going on" Marco asked after seeing my wall.

"I've been awake for days spying on Gustav" I told him, "and I'm this close to figuring out what he's plotting!"

"What?" exclaimed Marco as I stalked back over to my wall.

"His stories don't add up Marco! Penguins, ice bergs, polar bears? What the heck is a polar bear? And, he's making phone calls Marco. Phone calls! He's up to something terrible!"

"You, have lost your mind. But if you find it, were meeting Gustav for a picnic at Isolation Point. Where no one can hear you scream… with enjoyment!"

For a brief moment I considered capturing him, to keep him safe from Gustav. There were plenty of places I could comfortably keep him in my room. But I quickly dismissed that, he would resent me too much, so it was back to plan A. I needed to figure out what Gustav was up to, and soon.

Turning back to the wall, I remembered some of the things Gustav had said and done during his stay. There had to be a connection that revealed his scheme. Suddenly it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Gustav was going to turn them into meatballs! I had to go save Marco and his parents.

I heard the family car start and I ran to my window, terrified. I got there just in time to see Marco close the door and the whole crew pull out of the drive way.

"Wait!" I screamed, thinking fast. I sprinted out of my room after them and made it to the front door before they made it too far.

"Fire, Rocket, Blast!" I shouted, blasting the ground at my feet with magic and bunnies. I was launched into the air and aimed myself at the car, they weren't getting away from me.

With a thud, I landed on the roof of the car. I scrambled to grab on, finding a handhold before I flew off. I went to lean over and issue a warning to them, remembering at the last second to put on a "seatbelt". I used my wand to make a rainbow that went across my lap and kept me anchored to the car.

Smiling to myself, I leaned over the edge of the car and started pounding on the window. I tried to shout into the car, screaming "You're all going to die!"

Unfortunately they were unable to hear me over their singing, it was something about meatballs and woods. It was hard to hear them over my own screaming and the wind that blasted around me. Heedless of my warning, the family sped towards an ominous looking cliff.

As we crested a hill, I saw in the distance the sign pointing the way to isolation point. Thinking quickly, I blasted it with some magic, causing it to point the other direction at the fork. While the Diaz family turned their vehicle in the new direction, I leapt off the roof and headed towards Isolation Point.

Thunder rumbled ominously in the clouds as I arrived at the area Gustav had prepared. He was standing around a fire in a small clearing and I watched, scowling, I saw him pull the axe from his bag.

"I knew you were up to no good meatball boy!" I exclaimed, leaping from the bushes I had been hiding in.

With a terrified scream, Gustav dropped the axe and took off running. Not about to let him get away, I took off in hot pursuit and screamed "Get back here!"

Channeling my magic, I started casting spells at the person ahead of me. "Dagger, Heart, blast! Glow Worm, Blast! Narwhal Blast" I cried, raining spells upon him. When we reached a rope bridge, he cut the ropes in an attempt to halt my pursuit. As he turned to laugh at me, I channeled my magic and shouted "Glitter, Dragon, Escalation!"

Blasting the bridge with the spell, it came to life. The magic energies coated the bridge into the shape of a dragon and I stood on its head. "Give it up Gustav!"

With a terrified scream he scrambled off towards the woods. I willed the dragon after him and it crashed into the ground at his feet, knocking him flat as I leapt off.

"It's over Gustav" I said, advancing on the cowering boy and leveling my wand at him. I had saved Marco. "I know you aren't who you say you are."

"It's true!" Gustav wailed, breaking out into tears. "I'm full of lies!"

"So, you admit you're planning to eat the Diaz's?"

"Yes, yes… wait what?" He suddenly stopped crying and looked at me like I was the weird one. "No! I don't want to eat them."

"But you said…"

"I mean I'm not from Scandinavia" explained Gustav as he rose dejectedly to his feet. "The truth is my name is Charley Booth, and I'm just a guy from Bekersfieldville. Nobody's heard of it. Back home I'm just another boring face in a really boring crowd. It's not a good place for a talented guy like me."

I still wasn't convinced, not fully at least. "But what about the phone calls? And the axe? And those meatballs?"

"Well, the phone calls were to my meat guy, but he wouldn't pick up. The axe was to cut firewood for today's feast. As for the meatballs, my dream is to become a chef, and open a restaurant in Bakersfieldville that uses spices and flavors! So that's why I ran away… and moves in with the Diaz's."

"But what about measuring the Diaz's in their sleep?"

"Uhhh"

Before he could answer, we heard the honking of a horn as the Diaz's pulled up behind us.

"Star! What a pleasant surprise!" said Mr. Diaz.

"You made it!" Mrs. Diaz exclaimed as the family piled out of the car and hurried over to us.

As much as I now understood Oskar and realized he wasn't trying to eat the Diaz's, he still needed to go. "Yeah I did, and I came here to tell you something about Gustav." I shot him a look, causing him to gulp in fear.

However, I'm a nice person, and after some thinking, I decided not to blow his secret. He did still need to go however. Thinking fast, I told the Diaz's "He's made you even more meatballs!"

As the Diaz's ran off to eat the meatballs, I turned to Gustav and smiled at him. "Thanks for not blowing my cover Star. If there's ever anything I can do for you…" he offered.

That was what I had been waiting for. "Well as a matter of fact Charlie, there is."

"Of course, what is it?"

A hard look came into my eyes, "After this, you leave. For good. Otherwise, I tell them everything." I popped a smile back onto my face and laughing told him "Now let's go enjoy those meatballs!"

* * *

" _I bet you enjoyed the meatballs now that you knew you had Marco back." Interjected Ruberiot._

" _What? I have no idea what you're talking about!" babbled Star. "I was just happy they weren't going to be eaten!"_

" _Yes princess, just continue the story" Ruberiot said, hiding a smile._

* * *

When we arrived back at the Diaz's home, I told them about Gustav's sudden and unfortunate departure while he packed up the last of his items. We all stood on the front porch and waved goodbye, I was the loudest of them all. "Bye! Buh-bye Gustav! Bye!"

The rest of the family joined me as he took off into the sunset. Marco yelled out to him "See you next year!"

"Or not! You never know!" I added, I knew we wouldn't. Happy that that problem was taken care of, I skipped inside, Marco right behind me.

"Surprise! Happy 51st day on Earth Star!" Mr. and Mrs. Diaz were holding up a cake with my face on it.

I squealed with joy, "A party, for me?"

I walked over, Marco in tow as Mr. Diaz said "Who wants cake!" as he handed Marco and I a slice each.

"I'm sorry your favorite exchange student had to leave so soon." And I meant it, as much as I had wanted Gustav gone, I still felt a little guilty about sending away Marco's favorite.

"You kiddin? You're my favorite."

All of my guilt turned into joy in the blink of an eye. I could feel it bubbling up from my chest and I couldn't contain it. Smile plastered on my face and humming, I skipped off into the kitchen to finish my cake.

"I will miss seeing him though, that guy is just so real."

I laughed to myself, if only he knew.


	8. Cheer up Star

**Author's Notes:** This chapter is probably the worst one yet, and I'm sorry for that. This chapter was really hard to do, easily the hardest so far, what with the presence of Oskar being very disruptive to how I am trying to tell the story. It tripped me up a lot, but I hope it's acceptable. Next week should be back to standard quality though.

* * *

It all started when Marco had a really bad day. He had had to run inside really quick and missed the bus to school, it left with only me on it. He ran screaming after the bus, pounding on it. I heard him pounding the side and opened my window, tricky things those bus windows. It was pretty impressive how he was keeping up.

"Look at you, joggin to school, in the zone." I said.

"I'm trying… to catch… the bus!"

"Keep your focus! I get it, stay in that zone." I said. Not really having understood what he wanted, I retreated back into the bus and closed my window. At that moment, the bus came to a stop. Marco hadn't noticed, being so into trying to get my attention, and slammed his head into the stop sign that popped out.

The bus driver got up to see who hit the bus, but failed to see Marco lying on the ground, half conscious. The driver shut the doors and started driving, right as Marco stood up. Unfortunately for him, part of his hoodie got caught in the door and he was dragged along until it ripped.

When the hoodie ripped, I watched as Marco fell into some trash that was piled on the sidewalk. At this point, I finally figured out that Marco had wanted to get on the bus, not run. I tried to get the driver to stop and go back for Marco, but I was ignored.

When Marco finally arrived at the school, I saw that he had pulled a newspaper on over his torn hoodie and had a swollen eye. As he entered the premises, a girl popped up in front of him and took his picture. To make matters worse, immediately following the picture, Jeremy showed up.

As Jeremy taunted Marco, Marco tried to be the adult and ignore him. It was quite impressive, considering how rough his day had already been. Jeremy wouldn't give up however and kept taunting poor Marco.

Finally, Marco had enough, he turned to Jeremy and stamped his foot down as he exclaimed, "I said, not today!"

With a loud snap, Marco stamped his foot clean through Jackie's skateboard.

Reaching down to grab both halves, Jackie looked up at Marco and said, "Marco… you broke my… skateboard."

"Jackie, I-"

"It's fine Marco, I'll just live with it." Jackie put one of the halves down and started dejectedly scooting away. It scraped along the ground as inch by inch she left, looking sadly at Marco.

Marco's day didn't get any better as it went on, and by the time we got home, he just flopped onto the couch in defeat. He looked so dejected, rightfully so, and I tried all kinds of tactics to cheer him up.

I tried the fake mustache, he loves it, but it didn't work. So I put on a top hat and started juggling the laser puppies. When that didn't work, I put the puppies aside and pulled a giant fish out of my hat. He didn't even react. Then, the fish drooped over onto my head, encasing it. I started freaking out and running around. The fish managed to work its way down until it swallowed me completely. At least it got Marco to laugh. After that fiasco, he helped me out of the fist and was back to his normal self.

* * *

A few days later, we went to school and an interesting noise was all about, it sounded like music unlike any I had heard before. I set off to find its source. As I searched, I noticed people rolling on the ground, hands on their ears as they enjoyed the sounds. I could not hear what they were saying over the music, but assumed it was appreciation.

I rounded a corner, and saw the source of the music. Grabbing the nearby principal Skeeves, I asked him "Who is that breath of fresh air?"

I pointed to a boy sitting on the hood of his beat up car as he played a keytar. My eyes were as large as saucers as I drank in the sight of this new boy.

"Oh. Well that degenerate is Oskar Greason. I'd stay away if I were you, that boy has a record."

In my rebelliousness, that was the final push, I wanted him like a starving man wants food. I made my way over to where his car was and dreamily watched him play. I may or may not have daydreamed about him singing a song just for me while I was watching. Pulling out some sticky notes, I wrote Marco's cell number on it and told him to call me as I slunk away to class.

Throughout the school day, I could barely contain myself as I thought about Oskar. By the time Marco and I arrived at his place, I was almost bursting with anticipation. I ran to Marco and snatched the phone from his hand as I sang "I'm expecting a phone call! Form Oskar!"

"Why don't you just give him the home line?"

"I like your ring tone better." I quickly found his ringtone and played a snippet of it. It was an adorable song called Space Unicorn and was super catchy. "So cute."

"It's supposed to be ironic" I heard Marco say as I ran up to my room.

I ran up to my desk and plopped down in my chair, putting my wand and Marco's phone on the table in front of me and started to wait. After a few seconds, the phone rang and I snatched it up. "Hello?"

"Hola Marco, its grandma" intoned the voice on the line. Seeing that it wasn't Oskar I immediately hung up on her.

With a groan of frustration I resumed my wait. I waited and waited, checking the phone every few seconds to make sure I hadn't somehow missed his call. As the night wore on, my hopes dwindled. Eventually, I heard Marco's voice beside me "Hey, Star."

I turned my head to see a weird shadow next to me. With a click, Marco turned on a flashlight pointed at his face, revealing he was in full clown suit. I screamed in terror as I flicked on the lights in my room. I didn't stop as Marco made a thankfully hasty retreat.

Later into my misery, I heard Marco say, "Hey Star, up here!"

Since Marco is so great, I knew it wouldn't be clowns again, and I looked to see what he was up to. He had somehow built a rocket sled in my room out of a shopping cart and a giant firework. He had a giant foam finger and a sombrero with sparklers in it on his head.

"Watch this, I'm gonna…" he trailed off as he chuckled nervously. Even I knew this was dumb, and concern gripped me and he started to climb out and say "I can't do this."

Before he could dismount however, the sled took off with him along for the ride. I watched in fear, all my sadness over Oskar momentarily forgotten as concern for Marco gripped me. I watched as the sled shot off other fireworks amongst Marco's screams, lighting the room.

Eventually, he crashed into my fish tank and slid down next to my bed in the water flow. When he came to rest, I was looking at him with concern and he weakly said "Ta da!"

Seeing that he was fine, my sadness over Oskar returned in full force. With a grunt of frustration that Marco would worry me like that with such a stupid stunt, I rolled over on my bed and stared at the wall.

Next thing I know, I hear Marco calling me from the back yard. Dragging myself off my bed I go to the window to see what harebrained scheme he was up to. What I did not expect was to see Ludo and his minions outside surrounding Marco.

"I'm coming!" I said, turning to grab my wand. However, it wasn't where I had left it, and I called out to Marco "just let me find my wand!"

"Uh, I've got it" he called back.

"Marco! Why?"

"I'll explain later, just get down here and help please!"

I rushed to the back yard, Oskar pushed to the back of my mind. I ran up to Marco and snatched my wand from him as we retreated. I blasted the monsters to slow them down as we made our way to the shed in their backyard.

Slipping inside, I lit up my wand so we could see and Marco bolted the door shut. "How could I have been so stupid?"

"Marco… what the heck is going on?"

"This may be… all my fault?"

"What? What did you-" At that point I noticed a monster's glowing red eyes as it watched me through an open window. I reached over and closed the blonds, super creepy. "What did you do?"

"Uhm, hold this" he said, showing some weird skull sculpture into my hands. "We're gonna need to build some armor"

"Marco…" I wasn't letting him off the hook that easily.

Marco was looking around the shack for something, ignoring my question. Suddenly the entire shed shook under some large impact and a device fell into Marco's hands.

"Marco." He ignored me and got to work. "Marco Diaz! What is going on?"

"Look, do you remember when I was having that really bad day?"

"I'm sorry you had a bad day Marco, but what does that have to do with right now?"

"I'm getting to that" he said, still working on the armor. Before he could continue, an arm smashed through the wall and started groping around. Marco put the sculpture in the path of the questing arm and it tore the head off. He called out after it "Thank you!"

"I was so bummed out, but you did everything you could to cheer me up" he continued after fixing the hole. "And then you met Oskar."

Hearing that, I started reminiscing about earlier in the day when I had first met Oskar.

"Star! Can you please keep your fantasies out of my flashback?"

"Almost done" I mumbled around my wand as I finished remembering the meeting, fully entranced.

"I couldn't wait to talk to him" I sighed, remembering how eager I was at the start of the afternoon as Marco strapped homemade armor to me. "I guess I'm just not cool enough for a guy with a record."

"Are you kidding? You're the coolest girl I know."

I looked down at him and smiled, he really was the best. Before I could say thanks, the whole shack shook again, knocking me and some stacked up boxes to the floor.

"Anyway, you were so sad. It was my turn to cheer you up. And that's when I realized, nothing makes you happier than when you're narwhal blasting a monster! So… I tried to lure one with your wand." He explained. "I opened a portal where one of Ludo's monsters was working by himself and tried to lure him through. I did not expect him to bring friends."

"So you brought these monsters here to cheer me up?"

"Yeah… I just didn't expect so many" he told me with a nervous chuckle. "But don't worry, this armor will hold them off!"

Next thing we knew, the roof of the shed was torn off, a monster reached in and snatched Marco out of his armor. I made a mental not to tell Marco about the armor capabilities of my dresses when this was all over. I leapt out of my armor and over the wall to get into the yard after him.

"Give it up Star Butterfly, you're outmatched!" exclaimed Ludo while one of his minions held Marco twenty feet in the air.

"Ludo, what's with all these new monsters?" I asked, seeing quite a few faces I did not recognize.

"What? These are all the same monsters I always bring."

"I dunno…"

"I've never seen this dude in my life" said Marco as he pointed to the monster holding him.

"You mean you've never met Man Arm?"

"Hey" said the newly introduced Man Arm.

"Surely you know Spike Balls?" asked Ludo as he gestured to another one of his Monsters.

"Well we were never formally introduced" he said, though I didn't recognize him. He walked over to Marco and offered up one of his hands to shake, which were actually giant spike balls. "Hi, I'm Spike Balls. I'm usually in the back."

"Now that you all know each other… get the wand!"

The monsters leapt into action and charged me while I ran to free Marco. I ran over to Man Arm and blasted him with a rainbow fist of magic. He was knocked flying and dropped Marco to the ground.

Marco and I fought to clear an area, allowing me to jump up and cast a spell. "Honey Bee, Tornado, Swarm!"

A sheet of magic swept over many of the monsters, sucking them into a vortex of magic. While trapped, all of the monsters were stung repeatedly by the magic bees that were infused with the spell. There was one flower monster however who seemed to enjoy it.

I landed and joined Marco in fighting the monsters who had evaded my magic. I was loving this and said "You were right Marco! I'm totally cheered up! I don't even car if Oskar calls!"

Of course, at that moment, I hear Marco's adorable ringtone coming from my bag where I had put his phone. All of the fighting stopped while everyone contemplated the situation.

"What is that terrible ringtone?" asked Ludo.

"It's supposed to be ironic!" exclaimed Marco.

I reached into my bag to check the phone and saw Oskar was calling. With a gasp of joy, fighting monsters and talking to Oskar, I was stoked. I turned to where Marco was fighting still "It's Oskar!"

"Well talk to him."

"Oh, rightrightrightrightright" I said before hitting answer and flipping my hair over my shoulder. "Hello?"

"Hi, I'm calling this phone number, on my phone" he intoned.

I blasted a monster as it took a swipe at me and replied "Thank you for calling. I mean, hi…"

"Hi."

"So what are you-" we both started at the same time.

"I leapt back and smacked a monster with my wand as I said "Oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, I interrupted you."

Before he could respond, a monster walked up and roared at me. Normally not a huge problem except this time he did it almost directly into the phone. I just looked at it with a look of disgust before holding the phone back up to my ear and saying "Oskar, can you hold on for like one second?"

Swinging around, I let my annoyance become clear and yelled at the monster "Hey! I am on the phone! You monsters are so rude!"

I let my anger channel the magic into my wand as I cried out "Syrup, Tsunami, Shockwave!"

My anger helped fuel the spell as I flooded the Diaz's back yard with the spell, taking out all the monsters at once. I returned to my call, "Sorry about that…. Cool."

"Cool."

After a long pause, I said "Okay, bye… I like your phone voice!" and hung up. I sighed, almost melting with joy.

Everyone was peeling themselves off the ground and recovering as Marco approached me, also covered in goop. He never complains about my spells accidentally hitting him, which is one of the things I love about him. "Thanks Marco, you did know just how to cheer me up. And, Oskar called anyway! Hugs!"

I pulled him in close for a hug, forgetting about the magic syrup. I tried to pull away, but found that we were stuck together. It wasn't that bad, there are worse people to be stuck hugging, but it was ruined when some guy came past on his bike and started laughing at us.


	9. Quest Buy

One morning, as I was getting ready for school, I accidentally got some of my magic in Marco's area. He turned to me and complained "Hey! You know the rules. Keep your stuff on your side of the counter."

I watched as he pushed some of my stuff closer to where I stood at the two person sink. Reaching for a hand vacuum, Marco continued as he cleaned "Is it that hard to just be a little organized?"

"I'm organized… my mess is here, and well, that's pretty much my system!" I said, gesturing to the giant pile that was my stuff. Having magic to do my hair made times like this much easier. At that moment however, the battery in my wand decided to die on me. With a flicker, all the magic controlling my brushes and dryers stopped working, causing everything to fall to the ground.

"What's wrong with this thing?" I asked myself, unsure why the battery may have died. Lifting the face of my wand I said "Better check under the hood."

What I saw was not good. The millhorse that powered my wand was an exhausted husk, wheezing as it plodded along. I flipped my wand over and saw the energy level quickly fall from heart towards skull.

"Have you seen my charger? I know it's around here somewhere!" I panicked, knocking stuff off the counter as I searched.

"Where did you last see it?"

"Where is that stupid thing?" I screeched, ignoring Marco's question and still digging frantically through the piles of stuff laying around.

"Star, calm down." Marco said as I tossed stuff around the room. "Star! This is why you gotta get organized. See, with my system, nothing ever gets lost! Nothing's ever out of place."

As cute as his reassurances were, I was panicking too much for advice that didn't solve my immediate problem. I leapt to him and pulled him so close our faces were pressed together, "This is serious! You have to recharge wands with magical energy. If it goes to skull, it'll be dead… forever!"

"Can't you just buy another charger?"

I gasped in realization, that was the kind of advice I needed and Marco always pulled through for me. "Of course! They sell them at Quest Buy."

"Quest Buy?" Marco asked as I grabbed my dimensional scissors and opened a portal to Quest Buy.

"Come on!" I exclaimed around my wand, having grasped it in my teeth. I took both of Marco's hand and leapt through the portal, dragging him with me.

I was screaming with joy as we exited the portal, Marco's being more of fear. He was still getting used to dimensional travel. When we landed, I raised my arms and said to him, "Welcome to Quest Buy!"

Marco stared around in amazement, there was nothing like it on Earth. There were all sorts of species from all sorts of dimensions shopping around us, and the store seemed to go on forever. It might have, I had yet to find an answer.

Suddenly, someone thrust a platter in front of Marco and interrupted his staring. On it there were two green liquids and a fish-man looking creature asked us "Sample?"

We looked at him in confusion and he pointed at the each drink in turn, "Either take a sample, or leave a sample. Up to you."

"Gross" said Marco.

Before I could say anything, my wand beeped, never a good sign. I looked at the charge indicator and saw it had dropped even farther. I grabbed Marco's hand and started dragging him away as I said "We gotta hurry! You can talk to the creepy salesman later Marco."

"Gnome repellant? Extra strength ghost heads? How do you find anything in this place?"

"It only looks messy" I explained to the poor boy. "Legend says that the founders of Quest Buy had an ancient, cryptic system of symbols they used to organize the store, some have gone mad trying to decipher it!"

As if to prove my point, someone behind us yelled out "I finally got it! Housewares is that way!" With a laugh of glee he took off running, straight into the wall next to us. Marco and I just stared at the poor guy for a moment.

"If there's a system here, I'm gonna use it to find the best route to the charger department" said Marco confidently, as adorable as his confidence was, I didn't want to waste any time.

"Lucky for you, I myself know my way around here pretty well myself, if I do say so myself" I told him as I confidently led us to the chargers. "I think I just said too many myselfs."

Shortly after, as I was enjoying my stroll through the store with Marco, my wand beeped another warning, reminding me I wasn't just here for a nice walk and talk with Marco. We exchanged a glance that said we had both forgotten and took off running.

Soon we were heading down a tunnel and heard a voice echo out "Halt!" We stopped and saw a giant stone sphinx guarding the doors. She continued speaking and said "Those who wish to pass my lair, answer my riddle if you dare! I do not re -"

Fortunately, modern technology made these creatures easy to deal with. Instead of listening to her grand riddle, Marco pulled out his phone and looked up the answer. I gave the answer after verifying it was correct. "A leg!"

"But I run."

"A leg!"

"And jump!"

"A. Leg."

"And… wait, how could you possibly know that?"

"The internet."

"Internet?"

"You should look it up. Now c'mon, c'mon, open up." Her delay was costing us precious time.

With a sigh, the sphinx opened the doors for us and we took off through them.

After a bit more running, I turned to Marco and said "Oaky, it should be right through here!"

It wasn't.

"Gnome repellant, extra strength ghost heads? We're right back where we started. How is this even possible?" Marco asked in frustration.

"Let's see" I said, mentally retracing our path. "We made a right turn, and another right turn, then another right turn, then another right turn… Ugh, this makes no sense!"

Suddenly a shopping cart ran into me from behind. As I turned, I heard an unexpected voice say "Well, well, well, looks like Quest Buy really does have everything a monster could want!"

"Ludo!" I exclaimed as Marco took up a fighting pose beside me.

"Now hand over that wand or there's going to be a big clean up on isle … uhhh, what isle is this?"

"That's not my department" said one of the employees nearby. It seemed like nothing was ever in their department around here.

"Rainbow, Avalanche!" I exclaimed, ready to blast them all. With a few sparkles, my wand shot forth a small spurt of rainbow, more like a fountain than an avalanche. In all the excitement, I had forgotten why we were at Quest Buy in the first place. After that attempted spell, my wand looked even worse, all of the color had drained from the crystal and the face.

"Uhhh, just give me a sec here" I said nervously as I tried shaking some life into my wand. I tried another spell, "Narwhal, Nightmare!"

This time, a single narwhal popped out, barely bigger than my finger and plopped into my rainbow mess from earlier. We all watched it flop around for a couple seconds.

"Get me that wand!" shouted Ludo, having recovered first.

As the monsters approached, Marco and I backed up against a stack of merchandise. I turned and saw a humongous stack of adult diapers. Always the creative one, I grabbed a box and threw it at the closest enemy as I shouted "Big Boy Diaper Blast!"

Marco followed my lead and threw a box of his own at another enemy. Using the boxes as projectiles, we tunneled our way through the stack. Marco even managed to knock Ludo out of his cart with a well-aimed throw.

"Oh no, this doesn't look familiar at all" I cried out when we broke through to the other side.

Marco decided to take charge then, "You know what, we tried this your way. Now we're gonna try this the organized way."

He made his way over to a nearby map and started to examine it. After a few seconds, he exclaimed "I think I got it! That elevator will take us right to the charger department."

I couldn't believe it would be that easy, but Marco seemed to know what he was doing and time was running out. I followed him as we ran to the doors. As we hopped on, Ludo and his monsters came pouring through our escape tunnel in pursuit and hopped on the second elevator.

Marco and I watched as a giant slug monster slowed them down and crammed in the elevator with them. There had hardly been room for the entire band of monsters and I almost felt bad for them.

As we rose, I saw the charger department above us, Marco was seriously great. "There it is!" I told him in excitement. "Don't worry little wand, we're almost there."

"Told you I'd get us there!"

As great as Marco was, sometimes I could do without the bragging. Then, in typical fashion, things went wrong. The elevator suddenly shut down and plunged us into darkness. Marco and I climbed out at the next set of doors and an attendant told us the elevator was broken.

"Welcome to the booby trap department" said the employee who was standing nearby. "Please step carefully-"

Before he could continue, he stepped in a giant mouse trap and got snapped up in it. Marco and I gasped in surprise and prepared to go help him but he held up a hand and said "Don't help me up, I get worker's comp for this!"

I decided not to argue with him. He seemed happy with his lot and I had bigger problems anyways. On cue, the other elevator dinged. Of course it hadn't broken down, that would be too easy. Out popped the slug man, Ludo and his henchmen stuck to its back.

Popping himself free, Ludo yelled out "Get them!"

Yelling, Marco and I took off into the booby trap department.

"Look out" I yelled, placing a hand on Marco's chest to stop him from running into a swinging axe. "Wave of doom!"

I leapt in the air as an axe swung towards us, Marco choosing instead to drop to the floor underneath it. Leaping from the blade, I grabbed another axe as it swung past and Marco leapt up beside me. We rode it around a bend and hopped off in front of some statues with blowguns.

"Massacre darts!" I warned Marco as they started firing on us. We took off running with Ludo's minions still hot on our tails. Dodging and weaving, we made it safely to the other side. The monster leading the charge was less lucky and fell over in a daze.

"A hall way with walls that smash together periodically!" I yelled out as we approached the next trap. As the first set slammed together in front of us, Marco and I took the outside route and leapt around the piston shafts like bars on a jungle gym.

The next set we managed to get ahead of, and they slammed shut right behind us. We continued forward through the hallway dodging doors until we came out the other side. We were in the section for wand chargers.

"We made it!" cried Marco. I could have kissed him, but there were more pressing issues at hand.

"There's so many chargers! We'll never find the right one in time."

"Oh yes we will" said Marco as he grabbed my shoulders in a firm grip, "Because this time, we're gonna get organized."

I stared at him as he ran off to start looking. He seemed to have such a grasp on the situation all I could do was sit back and admire him.

"I'll figure this out, you go hold off the monsters" he said, noticing me still at the door.

"Right" I said, happy to have something to do. With a grin on my face, I took off running the direction we had come from, leaving Marco to his work.

As I ran through the department, I heard Ludo's shrill voice scream out "There she is!"

I smiled to myself, happy he had saved me some trouble. I turned to see who was chasing me and started to plan. As the monsters approached, I leapt up and toppled one of the shelves onto one of them. I hopped on it so that I could springboard to another shelf. My plans changed when one of the monsters blasted through the shelf I was standing on and launched me in another direction.

Thinking fast, I grabbed the shelf at my new destination and hopped inside to think. What I didn't expect was to find one of the employees siting in the shelf watching TV and eating chips.

"You're not gonna tell my boss about this are you?" he asked when he noticed me crouching next to him.

Instead of answering him, I turned to look back down at the enemies. Instead I got a wonderful view of giraffe head. The giraffe monster had found me and let out a bellow or war. Before he could strike however, I put my wand to use with the only function it had left. I leapt out of my cubby and smashed the monster in the head.

I had made my way over between two shelves when I heard a growl beside me. I turned to see two of Ludo's minions standing on the ground below me. I put my wand in my mouth and swung to the front of one of the shelves so I could climb it. Unfortunately it broke under the extra stress and I tumbled to the ground.

I hit the ground and rolled, springing to my feet as I did so. I snatched my wand out of the air as I slid to a stop, ready to fight. As the monsters advanced, a shopping cart rolled up between us and stopped. We all stopped and looked at the owner. She was a large, purple creature with horns on the side of her head.

"Well, well, well. Looks like mama's having pork chops for supper." With that, she reached down and grabbed one of the monsters before shoving him in her cart and trundling away.

The other monster resumed his attack, it would have been too much to hope he would go help his ally. The giant chicken monster flew up a few feet and flipped around in midair. Taking aim, he started launching large eggs at me as I took off running.

I rounded a corner and plowed straight into the woman from earlier, spilling her cart on the ground and dropping my wand. The giant chicken continued his assault as I scrambled to get free, only to realize my foot was stuck in the cart.

As the chicken flew over me, I brought my foot up and around, trapping it under the cart. Thankfully the jarring motion also freed my foot and as another monster approached, I leapt up and kicked him back into a shelf. As I moved on, I saw him pick up a box that had fallen and start calling out to Ludo.

Heedless, I went back to check Marco's progress, my wand was on its last power bar at this point. Not seeing Marco, I called out "Marco, where are you?"

"I found the charger!" Marco screamed from high above me. I immediately started climbing to where he was as he continued, "It took me awhile, but once I figured out they were using the metric sys-"

"Good job Marco, just give me the cock-a-doodie charger!" I had climbed up behind the rack and shoved my hand through the display at him. As adorable as his explanation was, time was of the essence. There would be time enough to explain the system to me later.

Marco handed me the charger and I leapt to the floor in victory. "Yes! I got it!"

At that moment, Ludo popped up beside me and snatched away the wand. I had a worried look on my face as he shouted "Yes! I got it! Finally, evil is in the palm of my hand! Princess, Blast your face off!"

My look of concern changed to boredom when a small cloud of poison in the shape of a skull puffed out with a wheeze. The wand hadn't even had the power to change shape, much less cast a spell. Ludo's face also changed, from victory to confusion. Never one to quit, Ludo tried again, "Spinning, Dizzy, Death Blast!"

This time nothing happened. Ludo struggled to think of another spell before giving up, pointing the wand at me, and simply yelling "Ka-pow!"

Again, nothing happened and Ludo shook the wand in frustration, "What's wrong with this thing?"

Having had enough, I punted Ludo in the chest. With a grunt, he threw the wand into the air and went sailing. Man am I glad he is so tiny. I caught the wand as it flipped through the air and started to insert the charger. I had a silly grin on my face, happy to have not lost the wand. Mom would have really been mad at that.

Giggling with barely contained excitement, I plugged it in. The result was almost instantaneous. The charge bar filled all the way back up to heart. The face even popped open to reveal the unicorn, restored to its former glory. No longer a dry husk, the unicorn reared and with a whinny started to run. Sweet music played as pink light flared up around the millhorse.

"So cute" I said with a giggle as I closed the lid. Marco ran up at that point, his Earth body not being as nimble and resilient as mine he had had to slowly climb down. It was time to test out my newly invigorated wand, and I had the perfect targets. "Fantastic, Exit, Beam!"

With a blast of green, I was propelled into Marco and towards the exit. As we slid by, me giggling the whole way, one of the employees asked me "You gonna pay for that charger ma'am?"

"Nah, my arch-nemesis will cover it. He kinda owes me."

"Uh, you do realize we could just walk" said Marco, always the voice of reason.

Unfortunately for him, I didn't care. Continuing the spell, I told him with a smile "I know!"

With a sigh, Marco rolled his eyes in that cute way he does when I'm being stubborn and he knows I'm right as he waited for the exit. Pulling out my scissors, I opened the portal back to Earth and we hopped through.

"We're back" Marco said with a sigh of relief. I guess he was still getting used to all the magic stuff a bit. I was only barely listening, my attention focused on something else in the room. Marco kept talking, ruining my concentration, as he said "You see Star, it pays to be organized. If you'd just listened to me-"

"Whoa, shut it" I said, holding a finger up to his lips.

"He moved my finger and said "On Earth, its rude to tell people to shut it."

It was adorable the way he was trying to admonish me, but my focus was elsewhere. I told him "Yeahyeahyeahyeah, that's rude on Mewni too. Look."

I pointed ahead of me, how Marco had missed it is still a mystery. Floating in the air was Marco's hand vacuum. It was surrounded in a pink haze and was running all on its own.

"My mini-vac!"

"It's possessed" I told him matter-of-factly. When he didn't respond, my curiosity took hold. "I'm gonna touch it."

"Nonono, don't touch it" warned Marco, already too late. I reached out and took it in my hands. "Uhhh, she's touching it." 

I grabbed it and popped it open, I wanted to see what made this thing run. Surprisingly the pink glow was actually coming from inside the device. When I saw the cause however, my face dropped. I reached in and pulled out the source of the mystery.

"Eh, just my charger" I told Marco, nothing exciting. Then with a gasp I realized it was my missing charger. "My charger?"

"Uhhh, woops?" said Marco nervously when I turned to look at him. "I must have accidentally sucked it up when I was cleaning, sorry. I guess you have two now."

Man he was too sweet to even pretend to stay mad at. With a shrug I dropped it back in the hand vacuum and said "Nah, you keep it. I've got my wand, you've got a magic floating vacuum cleaner. Now we're both cool."

I saw the look of appreciation he had as I walked away, only later would I realize just how impactful my statement had been. Plus this way he could hopefully get a little more used to being around magic, I wasn't planning on going anywhere any time soon.

As Marco walked after me, I heard him yelp, followed by the thud of him hitting the floor and sigh of resignation. I couldn't help smiling to myself and thinking maybe I could clean up a little bit


	10. Diaz Family Vacation

"So, this is what it's like to be bored to death." My father was in the middle of giving me a lecture on his royal duties. I was bored out of my mind. Sometimes they felt the need to share these things with me since I was on Earth, I wished they didn't.

"Star?" asked my mother, jolting me out of my thoughts. "Are those dimensional scissors?"

Well, I was paying attention now. I had stupidly left the dimensional scissors Pony Head gave me on the table behind me. Thinking fast I said "Uhhh, no, no, of course not! Just normal Earth scissors. See?"

I picked up a sheet of paper and started cutting a pattern into it. As I spread the unicorn pattern out to show my parents, a dimensional rift opened behind me. Apparently I wasn't as good at controlling the scissors as I had hoped. I quickly scooted so the portal was behind me.

"Good" said my mother as an arm reached through the portal and started swiping at me. I fought the monster off as discreetly as I could while she continued "Because you are not to leave Earth."

"I would never think of it!" I told them with a nervous laugh. I lifted my leg and as discreetly as possible kicked the hand, trying to get it back through the portal. For a moment they seemed suspicious, but then daddy broke the silence.

"Glad to hear it!" Suddenly his watch beeped and he frowned "I'm sorry your mother and I must cut you short, I have lecture things to do."

"Oh him and his lectures" my mother said as she rolled her eyes and they walked away from the mirror.

"Okay, bye!"

With them gone, I turned to deal with the arm that still hadn't gone away. With a yell, I shoved it into the portal and let it close shut before heaving a sigh of relief. It would have been awful had they noticed.

"Star!" Marco opened the door of my room and the stress from talking to my parents disappeared. "We're about to celebrate my parents' anniversary, c'mon!"

And suddenly it was back. "Oh no, I didn't get them anything!"

"Don't worry about it, my gift can be from both of us."

As sweet of him as that was, I wanted to get them too. "But I wanna get them something just from me cuz your parents are actually cool."

Marco looked stunned as he tried to process what I said. He just repeated the word cool to himself as he closed my door. I didn't see how he could think differently, they were way cooler than my boring parents. After a few moments, Marco was back at my door, his gift in his hands.

"Come on Star, let's give them our gift."

"But I still haven't picked out something for them!"

"It's fine Star, that's why we are sharing mine."

I wasn't happy about this. As sweet as it was for Marco to share his gift with me, I still wanted to get them something on my own. Walking down to the main room, I wracked my brain for something, anything I could give them. When we got downstairs, Marco's parents were waiting for us on the couch. They were cuddled up together, staring into each other's eyes, and humming back and forth. I thought it was cute, Marco's face said he was of a different opinion. Clearing his throat, Marco strode towards his parents to present the gift.

"Oh hello kids" exclaimed Mr. Diaz when they noticed us.

"Happy anniversary you guys!"

Mr. and Mrs. Diaz let out squeals of joy as they took Marco's gift and opened it. Mrs. Diaz pulled out two fanny packs as Marco looked on in anticipation.

"Wow, Marco, more fanny packs."

Typical Marco, he had given them something practical but also useless. Even I could see through the fake enthusiasm Mrs. Diaz was trying to show for the gift.

"Okay, I know you guys are non-believers, but these are way cooler than last years!" Marco pulled up his hoodie to reveal that he too had on a fanny pack. It took all of my self-control not to grab his adorably misguided self, haul him upstairs, and educate him on gift giving as he continued trying to sell the gift.

"They have everything you need. Like a dilemma whistle, non-drowsy antihistamine, and a space blanket made for two!"

Amazingly, it seemed to work. His parents looked at the bags with actual enthusiasm as Mr. Diaz said "Oh yes! You know how much we love to travel and see the sights."

"Oh Marco, you put so much thought into this" said Mrs. Diaz as my heart sank. Now that they actually liked Marco's gift I really had to get them something. Then Mrs. Diaz dug the knife deeper as she continued saying "Gifts are such a great way to show how much you really care about someone. I didn't think it was possible to love you more than I do right now!"

I couldn't stand it anymore, I was about to burst. I had to do something, anything to show my appreciation to them. And then it hit me like a bolt of lightning, the perfect idea. I leapt over Marco and told them "And I'm giving you a trip to Mewni!"

Leaping up from the couch, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz exclaimed in joy "We're going to Mewni!"

"We can use our new fanny packs!" Marco interjected nervously. It wouldn't kill the dork to trust me every now and then, even I can have good ideas sometimes.

Mr. Diaz swept me and his wife up in his arms and we all hopped together as he said "We go now right?"

"Right now?" agreed Mrs. Diaz.

"I want to go right now!"

"Can't we go right now?"

"Of course we can go right now!" I told them, relieved at their excitement. I extracted myself from the hug and turned to Marco and hugged him in joy as I said "Oh yay, they loved it! Now you guys go get ready while I get my scissors!"

Marco followed me up to my room while his parents went to get their bags and as I grabbed my scissors he asked me "Are you sure this is a good idea? Aren't you supposed to stay on Earth?"

"Oh its fine" I told him, "Plus I had to do something for them after I saw how much they liked your gift and this was all I could think of!"

"Alright, alright, let's do this."

We went downstairs to rejoin Mr. and Mrs. Diaz as they waited by the door. I pulled out the scissors and cut open a portal to Mewni. Ushering everyone through, we hopped out in the outskirts of Mewni.

"Welcome to Mewni!"

Mr. and Mrs. Diaz started snapping tons of pictures. I smiled to myself in joy as Mrs. Diaz asked me "Is this where you grew up?"

"No" I said with a chuckle before pointing up towards the royal castle, "I live there."

All of the Diaz family looked up at the castle above the cottages and let out an oooh of appreciation. Chuckling some more, I told them to look higher. Looking up even more, they saw a temple rising above the clouds and let out a noise of surprise. But then I had them look even higher, to the summit of the mountain where the royal castle was and they were floored.

"Let's go there!" said Mrs. Diaz.

"Ah, you don't want to see that lame, cheesy touristy stuff" I told her.

* * *

" _But the castle doesn't allow tourists" said Ruberiot "also the castle is very nice, why did you tell them that?"_

" _I wasn't supposed to be on Mewni, remember" said Star._

" _Oh right, and its fine now?"_

" _Oh yeah, now they don't mind as much if I travel a bit, especially if Marco tags along" Star explained._

" _Oh, I guess that makes sense, sorry for interrupting."_

* * *

Instead of taking them to the castle, I decided to show them the areas surrounding the main city. "What you want is the real Mewni experience!"

I gestured to the commoners in front of me where a disgruntled woman was looking after about fifteen children. Though it was more like tolerating than actually supervising. Beside her was potion stand where some grizzled person of indeterminate sex was stirring a bubbling cauldron. As we watched, a child reached up to steal some ingredients and the potion maker grabbed the child. With a startled scream, the child was added to the bubbling mixture. After a few seconds, his head popped up and he giggled as he spun in the stirred concoction.

"Oh, hello little boy" said Mrs. Diaz as she turned to a child crouched next to us. The boy let out a scratchy wail before putting the raw unirat he had been eating in his mouth and scampering away.

"Oh look, an open air market!" I said, steering the family towards a hopefully Earth friendly area.

There were people selling all sorts of Mewman items that couldn't be found on Earth. There were hydra tail apples, shrunken goblin heads, pickled giants toes, and even someone selling random knickknacks from a cloak. Mrs. Diaz got a set of wind chimes made from bones off of him.

As we continued to wander the suburbs, I tried keeping an eye out for things the family would enjoy. What I did not expect to see was my father buying a spear in an alleyway. With a gasp, I ran to Marco for advice, leaping into a goat-pigpen as his parents continued to take pictures.

"Star, what the?"

"My dad's here!"

"Your dad?"

"Yes! I don't know what he's doing here but if he sees me I am dead!"

"Breathe" Marco told me. "Just tell my parents the fanny packs are from both of us and we can go home!"

"But they're actually enjoying my gift! I don't wanna ruin this for them!"

Instead of doing the smart thing and listening to Marco, I pushed on with my tour of Mewni idea. All I had to do was take them somewhere Dad would never show up. Standing from my hiding spot, I looked around for a good location.

"Next I want to show you… Mewni's natural beauty!" I said. In my eagerness to continue the tour, I decided to take them to the Forest of Certain Death.

* * *

" _That sounds like a wonderful idea princess" Ruberiot said in a mocking voice._

" _Oh hush, I was desperate okay?"_

" _Okay, I hope in the next story you listen to Marco."_

 _With an indignant huff, Star continued the story._

* * *

"Forest of certain death?" cried Marco.

"Oh, don't read too much into the name." I was sure that with his karate and my magic, we would be fine. Grabbing him, I ran to catch up with his parents.

"So it's really kind of important to keep moving" I said as we entered the forest, wanting to get out of sight as quickly as possible. If my parents had found me I would have been in so much trouble, maybe even forced to leave Earth. Gesturing around the forest, I pointed out the wildlife of Mewni as Mr. and Mrs. Diaz took pictures. "There's a bleeding willow tree, here's a carnivoral blossom."

"Are you guys seeing any of this?" cried out Marco from behind us suddenly.

"See it? Can't take our eyes off it!" exclaimed Mr. Diaz.

They took off, arm in arm as they chanted "Best anniversary ever!"

Unfortunately they walked right over a path snapper. I ran after them as I shouted "Waitwaitwaitwait!"

They did not wait and walked right over it. Amazingly it did not eat them. I followed after them, gingerly making my way across the plant as I tried to stop them. I left Marco behind, sure he would be fine on his own.

As I ran after Mr. and Mrs. Diaz, I heard Marco yell something from behind us, he sounded excited. I hoped he had found something cool, maybe raise his spirits. I was too busy chasing his parents to turn around and confirm what he was up to.

"Oh wow, these flowers are lovely!" said Mrs. Diaz as we passed a row of burrowed petal grubs.

* * *

" _Petal grubs?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Oh you know, the plant creatures that look kind of like monsters but have that red flower on their heads. They like to hide in the ground so they look like flowers and ambush unsuspecting passersby. I can never remember the actual name" explained Star._

" _Oh right, those."_

* * *

"Wait for me!" I cried out, still chasing the couple as they heedlessly marched onwards.

"Come on my dear! Let me capture your beautyness on this magnificent adventure!" cried Mr. Diaz as they climbed a bleeding willow.

"Wait, come back!" Mr. and Mrs. Diaz were relentless, I slipped as I tried to climb after them and shouted after them "Okay, you can stop being so cool now!"

By the time I caught sight of them again, they were closing in on some kind of purple, fluffy creature with big, pointy teeth. I didn't recognize it but knew it was not safe to get as close to it as they were.

"Okay now, hold still…" said Mr. Diaz.

And then they started snapping pictures. The creature started letting out horrible screeches as it alternated looking at the two people invading its territory. I ran to get closer, losing sight for a second as I climbed a particularly large root. I was just happy they were still alive.

And then my joy crumbled to pieces. I heard a familiar voice off to my side say "These tracks are fresh!"

It was my father! I panicked, thinking he had come following me. I dropped behind the root and said "Pegasus feathers! He's on to me."

"Nothing makes you feel more like a man than going to the bathroom in the woods."

And there he was, my wonderful strategist and partner in crime. I pulled him down next to me so that my father wouldn't notice him as I said "We gotta go! It's not safe here. Look, my dad is right there!"

To help prove my point, my dad finished examining the tracks and pointed saying to his guards "This way."

"Let's just get your parents and go home!"

"I told you this was a bad idea" said Marco.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay smarty pants, come on." I ran back to where I had left Mr. and Mrs. Diaz as I said "Okay Mr. and Mrs. Diaz, that concludes the tour, hope you've enjoyed your…"

At that moment, I realized I was talking to an empty rock pedestal. Neither the creature nor Marco's parents were anywhere in the clearing. As Marco and I scouted the clearing for clues, I called out "Mr. and Mrs. Diaz?"

"Where did they go?" asked Marco.

"Look foot prints!" Marco and I looked ahead to where the footprints lead. I heard him gulp as I did the same. The footprints lead straight into the mouth of a cave shaped like a skull, complete with smoking entrance and spooky red lighting. Suffice to say, it was not looking good.

Using my wand for illumination, Marco and I snuck into the cave. Bats scattered as we wandered among the skeletons that littered the floor. Suddenly, Marco cried out "Look, it's their stuff!"

I pointed the light from my wand in the direction he was pointing. Mr. and Mrs. Diaz's clothes were strewn about the rocks, but Marco's parents were nowhere to be seen. Picking up the set of wind chimes Mrs. Diaz had bout earlier, Marco turned to me and said "But where are they?"

While I was trying to come up with an answer, a great gust of wind blew past us and was followed by the sound of raspy breathing. I looked further in and saw some kind of blue thing sitting around the corner. I walked over and shined my light down a hole I saw in the fleshy object.

With a great huff, the air around me was sucked into the hole before being violently expelled, almost like a nose. Looking up, I saw that it was a nose, connected to a terrifyingly large beast. As I stared on, it opened one of its many eyes before rearing up to its full height, easily more than fifty feet. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, five more heads popped up before the creature let loose a roar.

"Let's get out of here!" screamed Marco.

"No! That thing ate your parents!" I told him, pointing to the creature's belly. From where we stood, Marco and I could see what appeared to be limb stretching against the creature's stomach and hear muffled screams.

The creature snorted as three of its heads whipped towards us. I shoved Marco aside as I screamed "Look out!"

One of the heads snapped me up. As I crouched in the mouth, I saw a barbed tongue swirling around, trying to find my location. Then it shot forward, trying to grab me. I leapt around the beast's mouth dodging the tongue until I heard the beautiful sound of Marco above me.

"Let her go!" he shouted, thrusting his hands through the beast's nostril. I grabbed his hands and let him pull me to safety as the tongue shot towards me in a final attempt.

"Sure, Rainbow, Dolphin, Slap!" I cried as he pulled me out. The spell blasted the beast in the face, sending it hurtling back towards the main body. I fired twice more as two other heads tried to encircle us.

Roaring, all six heads launched at us for a second assault. Marco and I took off running while we tried to think of a plan. Unfortunately for us, we ran into a dead end and could only watch as the beast closed in on us. Firing off a few more blasts of magic as the heads neared us, I knew it was a losing battle. Marco managed to punch one of the heads that I missed, but even with Marco at my side, things were looking grim. We needed a miracle, and soon.

Problem was, that was the moment the creature decided to show off another one of its talents. Rearing back, one of the heads let loose a jet of flame at Marco and I. We scattered to either side, anywhere was better than in the flame. Dodging the beast's legs, Marco whipped a blanked out of his fanny pack and yelled out "Quick, under here!"

I ran to where he was and leapt under the blanket with him just as the creature let loose another blast of fire. It was nice and cozy under there with just the two of us, close together, but not so much that the heat from the inferno outside made it uncomfortable. Crouching next to Marco I said "Wow, what else you have in there?"

"I pretty much used up everything when I was schooling the forest of certain death" he bragged. As cute as his confidence was, I needed something slightly more tangible to help us here. As nice as it was under the blanket, we needed to save his parents. "Well, everything except for this miniature, miniature book of knots."

"So cute" I said when he showed it to me. And then everything fell into place. With a sly grin, I turned to him and said "Did you say knots?"

"Yeah… wh-" He stopped and I knew he had the same idea as I did.

Heads touching, we crouched over the book and started looking for a good knot to use. It didn't take long and within a minute, we had memorized the plan.

Marco and I leapt up, throwing aside the blanket as we waved and shouted for the beast's attention. Cooperatively, three heads swung to chase me and three swung to chase Marco. Running, taunting, and dodging, Marco and I kept baiting the heads. Each time they swung at us, they tangled themselves more and more.

Eventually, the knot tightened and the creature couldn't get us. Rearing up on its hind legs, the beast started to choke. The knot was tied so tightly that it couldn't breathe. When the beast finally flopped over at my feet, I leapt in the air with joy. That was easily my largest monster takedown by that point, and none of it possible without my amazing partner Marco.

And then, from behind me, I heard a crazed battle cry. Turning, I saw my dad. He was dressed in his usual hunting attire, only clothing handmade from the forest plants and he hefted a spear above his head as he bellowed. With a cry of joy, he leapt from the rocky overhang and landed right beside me gut had eyes only for the beast.

Or so I thought. He suddenly cut off his battle cry, turned to me, and said "Star?"

"My parents are still inside that thing!" yelled Marco as he ran over to where we stood.

"I'll get them out right away my boy" said my dad as he leapt to the side of the beast and with only a few, quick strokes from his spear, he cut open the beast. When the wall of flesh opened up, a group of Mewmans emerged, celebrating their unexpected salvation. Marco's parents were still nowhere to be seen.

"They're not here? Quick, to the large intestine before they're fully digested!"

My father and I could only stand by and watch sadly, fearing the worst and unsure of how to tell Marco. As we stood, letting him root around the carcass, we heard the most unexpected sound, laughing and splashing. With shocked faces, we looked deeper into the cavern, Marco sticking his head out the hole to look.

Through the haze at the back, we started to make out some shapes. Running over, we saw that it was Mr. and Mrs. Diaz and they had apparently found a hot spring of some kind.

"There is nothing like a steamy bath after a long day of exploration." Said Mr. Diaz.

"Mom! Dad!"

"You're alive!" I exclaimed with joy.

"Ah, King Butterfly! Care for a dip?" asked Mr. Diaz.

"As inviting as that sounds, I need a minute with my daughter." Grabbing me firmly by the arm, Dad dragged me away from the Diaz family to lecture me. "Star you know you're not to leave Earth! What are you doing here?"

"Okay, okay, but the thing is, it's not exactly my fault, there was an anniversary… it all started with the fanny packs." Then I realized something. "Hey! Aren't you supposed to be giving some boring lecture?"

"Ah, yes, we got a little lost, the directions were, uh, it all started with fanny packs…" I wasn't buying it and my dad could tell. Heaving a sigh of defeat, he told me "There is no lecture. Being king is exhausting! Every once in a while I need to sneak away and fight monsters! It keeps me sane! And it's good for my throne posture."

"So I get my monster fighting from you, cool!"

"I suppose so!"

We laughed for a bit before I addressed the hydra in the room, "Are you gonna tell Mom you saw me?"

"I didn't see you, and you didn't see me, but just this once."

After hugging, Dad bid farewell to me and the Diaz family as he and his royal escorts left the cave.

"It's cool you guys bonded and you got to see that side of your dad." Said Marco as he walked over to me. Then a look of panic came over his face as I heard some whistling from behind me. Marco put his hands over my eyes for a moment and when he took them off, all he said was "I wish I hadn't seen that side of my dad."

* * *

" _Oh, right. Ruberiot, if my mother ever gets wind of this, you will be thrown in the dungeons for so long, you will forget what the sky looks like am I clear?" threatened Star suddenly._

" _Then why tell me?" he cried._

 _Laughing, Star just looked at him and said "Oops."_


	11. Brittney's Party

**Author's Notes:** After the last chapter, I was asked by Christopherprime22 about giving Star some kind of variant on the spying spell to let her see what Ludo and such were doing while the story is going on to capture their parts of the episodes. I'm saying it now, not going to happen, for a couple reasons. The main reason is that it doesn't actually help the narrative I am trying to tell (how Ruberiot found out about the crush) in really any way and therefor adding those would me more work that I don't want to do. Also, the spell aspect would be me _literally_ , retelling the episodes and part of the fun of this is trying to put it into Star's words.

I hope that clears things up. Enjoy!

* * *

Earth school was great. I had tons of friends and everyone loved me. One day, as I was wandering the halls after classes, trying to find Marco, people kept shouting out to me. People asked me to be their science partner, had baked goods for me, asked me to cast magic on them, and all sorts of things. I even had a super fan! She called herself Starfan13 and the inside of her locker was plastered with photos of me. Fortunately my locker was right across from hers so whenever she showed me the pictures, I could show her all my pictures of her.

Then, I saw something interesting, a line! I hopped into line and started bouncing with eagerness after exclaiming "Oh, a line? I love lines!"

After bouncing around for a couple moments and looking everywhere, I turned to the person in front of me and asked "Why are we in line?"

"Only for the most important social event of the year!" cried the girl nervously as she pointed to the sky. Flying over our heads was a giant balloon of some sort, Marco tells me it's called a blimp, and on the side of it the words Brittney Wong's Birthday Party were printed in giant glowing letters. Using my amazing powers of deduction, I deduced that the line was for her party. As I watched, the display swapped to a new sign that said No Losers Allowed with a picture of Brittney.

* * *

" _I thought you said Earth didn't have magic?" said Ruberiot._

" _Yeah, Marco tells me it's this thing called electricity and it's the same thing that power's their televisions, but I am still skeptical" explained Star._

" _How interesting, I had assumed Marco's TV ran on magic like our Mirrors and phones."_

" _Apparently not, Earth is a really weird place, but still awesome."_

* * *

As I watched the blimp, I heard a voice that could only belong to Brittney Wong and looking down I saw her walking down the line. When she got to someone, she would either give them an invite, or more oftentimes, not give them one. Eventually Brittney made it to the girl in front of me and after a brief pause handed her an invitation.

"I'm in! I'm in!" exclaimed the girl as she turned to me before fainting with joy.

Next, Brittney walked up to where I stood and I held out my hands in excitement, obviously I was getting an invite, everyone loved me. Brittney walked up and told me "You are invited when pigs fly!"

Easy enough. Smiling, I reached into my bag and grabbed my wand. I loosed a blast of magic into the air above us as Brittney laughed. With an oink, a flying pig materialized between us and as I put up my wand I told Brittney "Problem solved!"

"Anything for you Star" said the pig in a silky smooth voice before Brittney swatted at it with a grunt. "Flying pig don't need this."

With a snort, the pig flew away as I nibbled on my wand. Flipping her hair, Brittney walked away, forgetting to give me an invitation. As she walked away, I told myself "I'm going to her party."

Bending down, I woke the girl who had fainter earlier and got her to show me the invite she had received, explaining how Brittney had forgotten to give me my own. To my great pleasure, one of the stops for pickup was right near Marco's house. Speaking of, at that moment, he wandered over to where I stood and asked me how my day was.

I told him it was good and a standard school day but we had to hurry home. As he tried to ask what was going on, I pushed him to his bike and got him to start pedaling to his house as I told him about the party. By the time I finished, we were at his house and I ran off to get ready before he could ask any questions.

Before I knew it, it was time to leave. I had thrown on a cute pink dress and was ready to party. I walked downstairs to find Marco sitting on the couch in his normal clothes. I figured he looked good enough for the party, but realized he would probably look really good in a prince suit. Sadly there was no time to go home and get him one and he refused to let me magic him up one so the hoodie would have to suffice.

Grabbing his hand I led him out the door and to the pickup spot as he said "It's so weird that Brittney invited us to her birthday…"

"And all she wanted was a flying pig!" At that moment, the party bus rounded the corner and I pointed it out to Marco as I excitedly hopped in place.

"The party bus? But I get carsick."

Silly Marco. Grabbing his arm, I led him to pick up as I explained "It's not a car, it's a bus."

The bus had not stopped to pick us up and so I raised my wand a shouted "Rabbit, Rocket, Blast!"

With a blast of magic, Marco and I took off through the air as he screamed. With a smash, we landed on the roof of the bus in one of my better landings. Grabbing Marco I said "Come on, let's find a way in!"

We split up to look for a way in and I quickly found an access hatch into the bus. I called out "I found something!"

"I found the stairs!" called out Marco at the same time.

"My way is more fun!" I told him.

"I doubt that" he said as he wandered over.

"Oh you'll see." I ran and grabbed his arm, dragging him to my find. When I threw open the hatch, Marco tried to pull away in protest. All this did however was cause me to lose my balance and we fell through into the bus. Landing with a thud with Marco on top of me I looked at him and said "See? That was way more fun than taking the stairs!"

Then I looked around and shoving Marco off me said "Oh sweet! A little tiny hat! Cool! I can make those." With a blast of magic, I made an identical hat to the one Brittney had on.

"Star Butterfly, what are you doing here?" asked Brittney.

"Nothing yet… I just got here!"

While this was going on, Marco was slowly picking himself off the floor. When he was about halfway up, I heard someone ask him "Marco, what are you doing?"

It was Jackie Lyn Thomas and when Marco noticed her, his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. Before he could say anything, the bus lurched to a halt and I could almost see Marco's stomach lurch into his mouth. Without answering, he let out a groan and backed away from Jackie.

I turned my attention back to Brittney and said "Let me sing you some birthday tunes with my mouth sounds." I launched into a wonderful birthday rap.

Before I could really get into the song, Brittney stormed past me, accidentally knocking me to the ground. She shouted "Driver! Pull over this bus at once!"

Picking myself up, I heard something about traffic and jets, it was hard to hear everything from so far away. Brittney came back over though and said "Okay, now to my invited guests, who wants to watch me open my presents?"

Nobody said anything until Brittney flipped her hair and said "I'm waiting!"

At that, everyone else started clamoring approval and raising their hands.

"Man, something tells me we were not invited to this party" I told Marco as I finally figured out I was not welcome on the bus.

"That's possible. Why don't we get off at the next bus stop?" said Marco.

"We can't do that, these people are miserable! They need us now." Everyone seemed to be having an awful time and as the party princess, I was not about to let that slide.

"Star, you don't have-" Marco started, before the bus lurched again and he doubled over, moaning in agony.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I told you, I get motion sickness, don't worry, I just need to sit here, stare out this window and never turn my head" said Marco as he climbed onto a nearby stool.

Knowing he was okay, I set off to make the party actually enjoyable. With a playful jab in the shoulder, I told him "You do that homie, Imma get this party started!"

I heard a yelp from Marco as I ran off as he said "Who puts a swivel chair on a bus? With wheels! Seriously?"

I saw Brittney was busy opening her presents still and had just opened a cute little purse. She however seemed repulsed and held it at arm's length as she said "Ugh, It's not designer!"

She threw it away and it hit another girl in the face and she simply said "You're welcome."

I ran in to liven things up saying "Oh hey everybody, I just want you all to know that I can make little hats!" Channeling my magic, I summoned a puppy "And also dogs! Check this out!"

I held up the puppy and it fired lasers into the air to create an awesome light show that said Happy Birthday Brittney in the air above us. Everyone exclaimed in wonder at my show and I had a smile on my face as my plan started to work.

Brittney however was not impressed. With a derisive humph, she stood up and smacked the puppy out of my hands with a flick of her hair, ending the light show. Not cool I thought to myself as she stalked off. She made her way over to Marco and started admonishing him for something while I thought up a new plan.

"Hey Brittney!" I said, running over. "I know how to make your party more fun!"

Without waiting for a response, I dashed off to the center of the bus and shouted "Rubber, Castle, Bounce House!"

With a blast of magic, the inside of the bus tuned into a bounce house, and everyone started jumping around inside it. Everyone loved it was having a blast, well everyone except Marco, it just made his motion sickness worse. Unfortunately, at the time I was too committed to my plan of livening up the party to take Marco into consideration.

Unlike poor Marco, Brittney had no excuse as to why she wasn't enjoying herself. Instead of having fun with everyone else, she was just standing with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. I bounced over to her, using my jumps to bounce her a little and said "Isn't this fun Brittney?"

And then I had an even better Idea. I ushered everyone to the roof of the bus, even Brittney. Poor Marco was left behind, hopefully with everyone on the roof of the bus his stomach would calm down some. Channeling my magic I cried out "Foaming, Twinkle, Bubble, Ripple!"

Amid cheers from the party goes, the magic shot from my wand and with a bright flash, created a magical clamshell hot tub. Even though it looked about 6 inches deep on the outside, it was actually about 4 feet deep when you were in it. With cries of excitement, all of the party guests leapt into the shell and started to party.

In the meantime, I slid through the access hatch to see Marco. He was resting on his stool in the corner and I made my way over next to him. "Oh Marco, its hard work making everybody happy,"

"Can you… make my tummy happy?"

Before I could try to help him however, the bus lurched to a halt. With a scream, Marco and I were sent flying to the front of the bus. As we lay on the ground, we saw everyone coming down the stairs from the roof, led by Brittney. She walked up to us and said "Finally, end of the line for the princess and the puke boy! Now get off my bus!"

"Oh thank you!" cried Marco as he crawled to his feet. Now that the bus was stopped, he was looking much better and already recovering. Stepping off the bus as I dejectedly made my way out behind him, he took a deep breath and said "Fresh air! Smells just like… monsters?"

My head snapped up in confusion. Standing by the doors was Ludo and his band of monsters. Ludo shouted "Get them!"

Before I could recover, they charged and one of them hit me hard as Marco and I retreated. I went flying into the bus and slammed into something. Recovering, I took up a fighting stance beside Marco. I knew I had hit Brittney when I heard her yell out from behind and below me "What is going on here?"

Ludo ignored her as he ordered one of his minions to take control of the bus. We watched as the monster ran over to the driver, threw him from his chair, got ready to drive. When he took a while fixing his hat, Ludo ran over and told him to hurry up.

Slamming his foot on the accelerator, the monster started driving the bus and everyone else from the party fell towards the rear. I however ran to where Ludo was and said "What's your game?"

Smiling as he used his beak to open a soda, Ludo said "I'm gonna bus jack this bus! Now that Three-Eyed Potato Baby is in control, he is going to drive it through a portal back to my castle!"

"That's a particularly stupid plan Ludo."

"It's a great plan! Shut up!" Ludo said after sputtering into his drink. Then he turned to his monsters and said "Just get her!"

The monsters let loose a battle cry and charged. I quickly took stock of the situation and decided that I couldn't fight in the main compartment. Marco was too sick to help and I couldn't endanger him. I quickly took off to the roof of the bus, knowing they would follow me.

I ran to where the hot tub sat near the front end of the bus as the monsters grouped at the rear. One of them advanced on me and with a twirl, I blasted him clean off the back with my magic. Another monster came at me then and swung to punch me. I leapt into the air and landed on his elbow before kicking him in the face and hopping to the ground in front of another charging monster.

As he swung at me, I dodged before blasting him and another attacking monster with my magic. The second monster, a giraffe like creature, managed to grab the back railing in his teeth and run along with the bus. Spinning my wand in my hand, I turned towards another charging monster who was trying to sneak around me and blasted him off the side.

I turned to fight the next two approaching monsters, blasting the first in the face as he swung at me. The second monster was a chicken looking monster that hopped up in my face and squawked at me. As I punched it, I saw the monster I blasted off the side of the bus earlier flip up onto the roof behind me. I cocked my fist back to punch, elbowing the monster off the roof before punching the chicken monster away from me.

The frog like monster that was always watching me at the Diaz house advanced again with the chicken monster. He swung a punch at me and as I rolled back and away from it, the chicken tried to pounce on me and missed. I came out of my roll near the hot tub and leapt up onto the back part of the clam shell.

I blasted the frog monster with another beam of magic as he charged me and he spun forward before falling face first into the tub. Leaping up, I came down on the shell and slammed it closed on him. He flailed as he tried to extract himself and I watched as I ran back towards the stairs.

Suddenly I slammed into something, or someone, and with a gasp turned to see that the giraffe monster had pulled himself back onto the bus. I turned to look for an escape and saw a bridge approaching. I smiled as he raised his fist to punch me, obviously having not seen the bridge. We slammed into it so hard, he made it halfway through the bridge before he came to a halt and was wrenched from the bus.

Turning, I saw a bear monster with a single horn charging me. I leapt over and kicked him in the stomach. He was tougher than anticipated though and quickly recovered as the chicken monster came up behind me. As they grabbed me, I saw that the bus was approaching the portal and realized I was running out of time.

Thinking fast, I jumped off the chicken monster into the bear and knocked us both down next to the roof hatch Marco and I had entered from earlier. Throwing it open and leaning in, I screamed "Marco! Quick, take the wheel!"

I knew I could count on the ever reliable Marco and as the bear monster got up with a roar, I pushed myself back to the roof and closed the hatch. Before the bear monster could recover, I leapt over him a launched a blast of magic at the chicken monster. While he was dazed from the hit, I leapt over to him and kicked him off the edge before turning and blasting the bear monster off as well.

I rushed back over to the hatch when I felt the bus start to accelerate, something was wrong. I leapt through it and tumbled to the ground headfirst. Picking myself up, I turned to see Marco struggling over the unconscious form of the Three-Eyed Potato Baby who had inconveniently fainted with his face on the accelerator.

As we hurtled towards the portal, Marco finally manage to gain control of the bus and jerked the steering wheel to the side. Not made to take sharp turn, much less at high speed, the bus started to tip. Marco was desperately trying to correct as we swerved back and forth on the road. Eventually we hit something and the bus went airborne. We flipped a few times in the air before crashing to the ground.

After a brief pause where everyone picked themselves up off the floor, Brittney's party guest got off and shouted with joy. As the monsters slowly made their way out, I went to pick up Brittney as Marco lay groaning on the floor. While I was exiting the bus, Marco suddenly jumped up and took off running, his face a nasty shade of green. He made it to a trash can and hunched over it, throwing up.

"Out of the way!" screamed Ludo who came tearing out right behind him. As Marco lifted his head, Ludo leaned in and puked as well.

As they alternated puking into the can, Jackie walked up behind them and said "Sick! Party animals."

I thought it was kind of weird that she would think the tandem barfing is weird, but I didn't want to judge, I didn't know her that well at the time.

* * *

" _Have you gotten to know her better since then?"_

" _Yeah, we got decently close" Star said with a small sigh._

" _Oh and what would you say about it now?" asked Ruberiot._

" _I mean… it's just… it's kinda weird, but she's cool… I guess." Star said as an edge of sadness creeped into her voice._

 _Ruberiot knew there was something more that Star wasn't telling him, but he was smart enough to know he would have to wait to find out what it was. He was patient, he knew Star still had many stories to tell._

* * *

Brittney however was focused on the destruction of her bus and screamed "This is horrible! My party ois ruined!"

At that moment however, some of the party guests walked up and one of them said to her "Aw man Brittney! Hot tub, bounce house, laser puppies, and an epic fight? Best party ever!"

I walked over and told her "Just so you know, I also do quinceaneras."

With a groan of frustration, Brittney waved her arms in my face and then stomped away in huff. At that point Marco walked up and wiping his mouth on his hand said "Man Star, that party was the jam!"

He reached up and put his hand on my shoulder, but as much as I appreciated the gesture, I reached up and removed it while saying "Please don't, with your puke fingers."

"Oh yeah, sorry. You know, if I ever have a party, you're gonna be my party planner." After that touching statement, the moment was ruined as he ran back to the trash can to continue puking.


	12. Mewberty

One day, after class got out, I was standing at the window watching Oskar at his car. He was playing his keytar and I was thoroughly entranced. Marco poked his head in front of me and said something before moving out of the way. I kept watching Oskar, having not really heard what Marco said. Marco came back when I didn't follow, and this time I forced myself to listen.

"You've got some paint or something" he said as he pointed to his forehead "Right here."

I crossed my eyes trying to the see the spot, which obviously didn't work. I had no idea what he was talking about, I didn't remember getting paint on myself that day. Reaching up, I felt something where he had indicated and peeled it off. I looked at the purple heart I now held in my hands as realization dawned on me. I held it away from me as I said "Marco! This is not paint!"

"Well, looks like you got another heart" he said in a caring tone.

"Quiet Marco, this is serious! I think I'm going through Mewberty." His intentions were adorable, but he had no idea what was happening and as I finished speaking, I felt more hearts pop up on my face. I pulled my hair down to hide the marks as I started freaking out.

"What… okay, uh, Mewberty…" he said with a chuckle. He tried to reassure me by saying "That's nothing to be ashamed of, we have a similar thing here on Earth."

His reassurance was sweet, Futile but sweet nonetheless. I turned and pointed at him as I said "Don't confuse this with your Earth things Marco! I'm from Mewni! This is gonna get really weird."

"You gotta keep me away from boys!" I screamed as I grabbed him by his backpack and pulled him close, more hearts popping up on my face. Then I realized something. "Wait a second, Marco's a boy."

I pulled him close, some kind of primal force making him seem incredibly enticing. It seemed so right but so wrong at the same time, part of me wanting to let him go and the other part just confused. He chuckled and extracted himself from my grasp, and the feeling thankfully passed.

"When you say things are gonna weird do you mean typical Star weird or like destroy the school weird?"

"Destroy the school."

"That's what I was worried about, let's get you home." He turned and started walking to the exit of the school. I followed behind him, wary of any boys that might pop up.

"Oh no, Oh no, Okay, here comes the boy, you got this" I muttered to myself as we passed a boy in the halls who was tying his shoes. Suffice to say, I didn't have it. As we passed, no matter how much I tried to resist, I couldn't help lifting the hair out of my face and staring. I felt more heart pop up on my face and turned away. "Marco, I don't think this is such a good idea…"

I trailed off as we passed another boy, drinking from a fountain beside us. I parted my hair for a better view and couldn't stop myself from leaning in. I watched him and could feel more hearts as they appeared not only on my face, but started popping up on my arms as well. Reaching over, I put my finger in the stream of water, stopping it from obstructing my view.

"My turn" I sang when he stopped in confusion. Before anything could happen though, Marco ran over and grabbed my arm.

"Okay, let's go" he said as he stared to drag me away.

Before we could make it more than a few feet, hearts sprouted on my arm from where he touched and my entire arm turned purple. Then the hearts shot from my fingertips as some sort of webbing almost and latched onto a nearby locker. I started screaming, and Marco turned to see what was happening. When he saw, he also started screaming as he pointed at the locker.

Marco had to tear his hand from my arm where the growths had stuck themselves to his hand and his hand came away purple. I tried to tear myself free from the webbing as well, but only succeeded in pulling the locker open, falling over, and sliding into it.

"I'm stuck."

"Uh… let me help" said Marco as he reached down to try and free me.

For a moment, I was excited. I wanted him to touch me. Who wouldn't want that, I couldn't imagine anything better. With a start, I realized that was the Mewberty speaking and in a panic, I threw myself into the locker. "No! Your little boy hands are part of the problem!"

For some reason, I was especially drawn to Marco too. More than I had been with either of the other two boys, probably due to the advancement of my condition.

"Isn't there some way I can help? Maybe there is something in your book of spells that can stop this."

"Maybe…"

"I'll go home and get it."

"It's not at home, I gave it to Ferguson" I told Marco, slightly embarrassed, but also relieved the book was already at school.

"Why?"

"I lost a bet, okay? Do you wanna help me or not?"

Okay, but we gotta talk about that betting thing later" Marco told me. I watched him run off as I peeked through the slats in the locker. With him gone, I was able to calm down a bit and started the long process of cleaning myself of the hearts. At first I was able to pick them off at a decent rate but eventually I had to peel them off one at a time.

It was slow going, but I was finally able to peel all of the hearts off myself. I leaned back, wondering what was taking Marco so long as I said to myself "That's better."

Suddenly I heard the bell ring, signaling the end of class. Marco still hadn't returned and there was a huge pile of hearts in front of the locker. All I could hope was that no one noticed or tried to open the locker. Then I looked around the inside of the locker and for the first time, I noticed that I had crawled into a boy's locker. Just my luck. As people milled about outside, I could feel more hearts popping up on my face. Soon they were on my arms and as I spun around in fear, the bell rang again to signal the start of the next class. The voices faded and the Mewberty hearts stopped growing.

"Huh, that wasn't so bad." There were much fewer than before and it wouldn't take me long to peel these off. Then it got bad.

"Alright boys, we're gonna do our warm-up out here today" I heard a gruff voice say. I couldn't stop myself from peering through the slits to see the men's swimming team walk out in front of the locker I was in. "Pool's been compromised. Poop, it was poop. Somebody pooped in the pool. Okay! Let's get to it!"

They all through down their towels and in nothing but their swimming trunks, the swim team started their stretches. It was too much for my Mewberty addled brain to take in and I reached up to the metal slats, pulling them out of the way for a better view. The purple hearts started spreading again, but this time I was too far gone to care. They quickly covered my face and overflowed the locker, spilling out on the ground in front of me.

Next thing I know, the door to the locker is opened, and this boy is standing there. He looks at the mirror on the inside of his locker door, oblivious to my presence or the pile of hearts inside his locker.

"Boy." I say, more hearts spilling from my mouth onto the ground. His headphones prevent him from hearing me, but I don't care, all I know is that I am entranced. I reach out to touch him, still completely oblivious. And when my finger contacts his cheek, he stops dancing to his music, finally aware of my presence.

I withdraw my hand as the shell of hearts fills in around my face and I close my eyes. When I open them again, everything seems different. Everything has a purple tint to it, and the boy in front of me stands out in amazing detail, an aura surrounding him I hadn't noticed before. He is looking at me now and I want to reach out and grab him, but I can't the transformation has started.

He closes the locker, unfazed by what he sees but I can still see him, fainter now but still visible. He and his aura fade as he walks away and I settle into my cocoon. As I feel myself transforming, more and more hearts are shed from my body. The shell grows harder around me before it starts to expand. It cares not for the confines of the locker and pushes at the walls. The locker bulges around me and tendrils grow from the cocoon.

The cocoon grows and grows as I change, losing track of time. At some point, there is a loud screeching noise from outside the cocoon and the area around me fills with boys. In hindsight, it was the bell to signal the end of classes. I should have been worried that Marco was still not back, but there was only one thing that mattered, boys.

As I finished my transformation, a boy approached the cocoon and placed his hand on the surface. This was the catalyst I needed to awaken fully. Reaching out, I slammed a hand into the inner shell as I tried to take his hand. He pulled back his hand and I became frustrated. I needed that hand, no, I needed him.

In my frustration, I slammed another hand into the shell, and then another, and another, and another, and another. Soon all six of my hands were pushing on the membrane as I floated forwards towards the boy. Tilting my head, I asked myself why I could not get to him and as if it were responding to my commands, the cocoon started to crack open. More and more I willed it to open until it popped open. I fell to the ground as the cocoon parted.

I unfurled my new wings and beat them once to clear the mist from inside the cocoon before launching into the air. I raised my six arms, rolled up my hair so it was out of the way, and zeroed in on the boy in front of me. Using both my wings and magic to fly, I looked down at him, smiled, and said "Boy!"

I felt a longing well up inside me, I needed to find someone or something. I swooped down and grabbed the arm of the boy from earlier as he stood in stunned silence, watching me. With a jolt of disappointment, I somehow knew this was not what I was looking for. However I knew he was still useful, if I didn't find what I was looking for I could potentially use him as a replacement.

Turning, I shot some webbing from my fingers and ripped the door off of a nearby locker. I threw the boy inside of the locker and when he had the nerve to try and escape, I shoved him in further and started using my webbing to trap him inside. By this point, people had started running about and screaming for some reason. As I finished securing the boy, another one reached out and grabbed one of my arms. I snapped my head around and one of my arms grabbed his while my others continued working.

I lifted the boy into the air, this one was also not it, whatever it was. Like the one previously though, I was not about to let him go to waste. I tore off another locker and secured this boy as well as people panicked. At this point, some older, larger boys showed up and tried to work together in subduing me. It was a futile effort and soon all of them were in their own cells, none of them had been what I was searching for either. I flew off to grab a nearby boy, swooping down as I passed overhead. He wasn't what I wanted either.

I flew back to the lockers where my collection was growing, and as I ripped the door off of another locker, I noticed a boy trying to free one of my potential replacements. Throwing my current catch into the locker, I quickly secured him as I flew to nab the vandal. Picking him up I grunted in frustration when I realized he wasn't the right one either. All of the boys were partly what I was looking for, but none of them were just right, always lacking in something and all different.

Letting out my frustration, I flew over and ripped the door off a locker, only this time with my bare hands instead of with the webbing. Throwing him into the cubby, I finished securing my two latest catches. After making sure they were secure, I flew off in search of whatever it was that I was looking for. By now though, the small part of me that was still myself had the horrible suspicion that it was a someone, and that that someone was a boy.

I flew around the school, grabbing every boy I saw, nothing else seemed worth examining or even worth noticing in most cases. Every boy was a disappointment, some more so than others. None of the boys felt right. After each catch, I would throw them in a locker for later.

Swooping into a classroom I found a boy hiding under a table, there weren't many boys left in the area at this point, at least not ones that were free. Lifting up my catch, I sighed inwardly. This one was even worse than the last. I hefted him into the air as I flew outside and looked for a prison. As I flew outside, I realized there was a new presence out in the open. For a moment I paused, I thought I had grabbed everyone outside already. I examined the new boy and realized it was Marco.

He seemed confused as he beheld my work. Not to be slowed in my search, I flew to an empty locker, ripped off the door and threw in my latest catch. Reaching out, I barricaded the entrance like the rest. As I worked, Marco approached, saving me the effort of hunting him down like the rest. He started talking, but it sounded meaningless drivel about scaring everyone or something. I turned back to my current catch, I had to finish preparing him just in case. I shot webbing over his mouth and went back to securing the door as Marco approached.

As I continued to secure the boy, Marco grabbed my arm and said "Stop!"

With a jolt, I knew. This was what I had been looking for. I looked at him, and saw him in a way I had never seen him before, he just resonated within me. Completely forgetting about my latest catch, I turned towards Marco, the rest were useless now that I had found what I wanted. Lunging forward, I started spraying webbing on him, pinning him to the wall as mind raced with emotions.

I continued spraying him, covering him more and more. A small part of me noticed that this webbing was different, very much unlike the stuff I had used to contain the other boys. That webbing had been hard and solidified almost immediately while this was softer, more like the material that had turned into my cocoon. Before I could envelop him completely, a sound cut through the now silent schoolyard.

It was Oskar and his keytar. I paused, confused by the sounds assaulting my ears. With this confusion brought a brief moment of clarity. Afraid for Marco, I focused on all the aspects that drew me to Oskar, and held on tight as I felt my more base instincts taking over. Fortunately it was enough, and with Marco no longer touching me, I was able to change focus from Marco to Oskar.

I felt bad, who knew what was going to Oskar, but I had been desperate to protect Marco. Turning, I flew up into the air so I could see him and droned out "Oskar."

With my full focus turned to Oskar, I swooped out of the sky to where he sat on his car, foolishly oblivious to what was happening around him. His singing only helped to keep me focused on him, and as I flew over, I went to blast Oskar with the webbing I had been prepared to use on someone else. I paused for a second, thinking to myself "Why then am I using it on him?" as I tried to remember who it was intended for.

At that moment, a net dropped down in front of me and that was enough to refocus me on the task of capturing Oskar. I tried to fly the last few feet towards Oskar, but the net stopped me no matter how I tried to reach him. In frustration I took up into the air and ending up arching up, around, and down into a tree. Inside the tree was a group of boys, the leaves having hidden them from me earlier.

None of them mattered anymore, I had already found what I was searching for. With a pause, I realized that it wasn't the boy I had just been chasing. Fortunately, I could not remember who it was as I was running on pure instinct and emotion at this point. After a pause, I decided that it was Oskar that I had been searching for and took off straight up into the sky.

I had forgotten the net however and after dragging it up quite a distance I turned and came back to ground. I weaved back and forth as I tried to shake the net off of me, some boy yelling as he held on. At the time, I was too focused on Oskar to realize that it was Marco and he was trying to help me or that he was in incredible danger from my antics.

After a few more seconds, I felt the net loosen around me before falling away. Turning, I saw Marco in his red hoodie laying on the ground. I paused, my worry for him almost enough to remind me that Oskar wasn't what I was looking for. I was about to turn back, but my now overwhelming desire for Oskar took hold before I could remember Marco and with a smile, I took off towards Oskar.

Flying down, I shot the hard webbing from four of my hands, anchoring myself to Oskar's car and taking off into the sky. Once up there, I used my free hands to start hauling the car closer and closer. Oskar finally realized something was happening and looked up at my Mewberty form.

"What?" he said.

I smiled at him as I continued hauling him closer and closer. As I pulled it so that I was standing on the roof, Oskar backed up to the edge of the hood. I extended my magic to the car so it would stay aloft and I started walking towards him, the soft webbing slowly spilling form my hands as I approached.

A part of me thought something was wrong, but at that point I was too far gone to listen to it. As I raised my hands to spray him, the car lurched underneath us. I stumbled and Oskar nearly fell from the hood. His fear of falling greater than his fear of me, Oskar inched a little closer as I regained my balance.

Before I could spray him however, I lost my connection to the car and it dropped out of the sky. I looked down and realized my arms were no longer solid purple. On the way up, I must have lost some. With a primal growl of frustration, I felt myself returning to normal, less beholden to my emotions. And then I passed out.

When I awoke, I was in the remnants of my cocoon. I heard Marco shout my name and come running over. With a groan, I pulled myself up and climbed out.

"You came back!" Marco ran over and pulled me into a hug. For a moment, I was worried and confused. Worried that whatever had happened earlier would start again and confused because I was still waking up. When nothing happened and I felt no desire to cocoon Marco, I smiled to myself and hugged him back. I was happy and relieved that he seemed like normal old Marco again and that he wasn't freaked out by what had happened.

Suddenly the hug was interrupted as I felt something flutter on my back. Springing apart, Marco asked "What was that?"

I turned around and pulled my hair aside. There on my back, I had grown two cut little wings. I let out a squeal as I said "Look Marco! I got my Mewberty wings!"

I put my hair up into a ponytail and grabbed Marco by the hand as he said "Does that mean you can fly?"

"Let's test it out!"

I took off running, dragging Marco behind me, as I started flapping my wings. Jumping into the air with Marco beside me, we took off. We laughed in joy, right before crashing to the ground.

"Nope." I told him as my wings buzzed on my back.

* * *

" _Can I see your wings?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Sure" said Star as she pulled aside her hair, showing him her tiny, pink wings._

" _They are beautiful Princess" he said, and Star knew he meant it. "So after you turned back, all the crazy boy stuff went away?"_

" _Yup, everyone was back to normal."_

" _Even Marco? And did you ever figure out what it was that made him so different?"_

" _Especially Marco, he was completely back to normal Earth boy Marco with no special Mewberty stuff" Star lied, not telling him that since then Marco had always seemed a little different when she looked at him. "As for the specialness, I have no idea. It must have been some weird Mewberty side effect."_


	13. Pixtopia

While I was up in my room working one day, I heard voices coming from the landing below. Apparently Marco and his friends were up to something, and since that something was in my room, I decided to go take a look. I descended the stairs to the main floor of my tower and paused when I saw Marco, Alphonso, and Ferguson rolling on the floor in laughter in front of my mirror.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?" I asked, leaning over the railing.

"Making crank calls!" Alphonso managed to get out in between laughs.

"Join the party!" called Marco.

"Awesome!" I vaulted over the railing to join them and everyone moved out of the way.

Marco took my shoulders and as I rubbed my hands together in anticipation, he called out "Mirror, Mirror, call someone else!" before ducking out of view.

As soon as it started dialing, a pixie popped on screen and said "I'm sorry, but you have exceeded your minutes. Your mirror service has been temporarily suspended. Please visit our office in Pixtopia to settle your bill."

As I recoiled in horror, the pixie woman let out a small giggle and hung up. I gathered my wits and threw myself at the mirror as I cried, "What? No!" Marco walked up and I cast a furtive glance at him as I continued, "What if my mom tries to call me? She's gonna freak."

I fell with my back against the mirror and slid down into a sitting position while Marco smacked himself on the forehead and said "Oh, sorry Star, that's my bad. The calls were totally my idea."

I realized something, Marco had messed up! Finally! My arm snapped out and grabbed his shoulder. I hauled myself to my feet as I said "Marco! You messed up! Now you're just like me! Yeeees!"

"What? No. I made one mistake."

I wasn't letting him off the hook that easily though. I grabbed his shoulder and pulling him close I said "You sure 'Starred' this whole thing up. How's it feel? Not bad right? Oh Marco, now we can be mess up twins!"

* * *

" _Did you just say 'Starred'?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Yeah, since I'm always messing things up in my own amazing way, I thought I would just go ahead and own it."_

" _Well, that is certainly… interesting." What Ruberiot didn't say was how much it troubled him that Star associated her name with messing up. It was another layer to the princess, one he disliked. He decided that he would try however he could to help his princess with this self-image issue, the only problem was how._

 _Star however missed the inner dialogue Ruberiot was having and plowed ahead with her story._

* * *

"What? Man, I ain't no twin!" Marco exclaimed. With a smile I let go to watch him flounder in the adorable way he does. "I'm- I'm- I'm Marco Diaz, only child!"

My smile diminished for a moment, only to grow twice as large as he stood there staring at me in denial. With a slump of defeat, Marco held out his hand and said "Where are your scissors?"

I gladly handed them over as Marco went over, opened a portal, and said "Let's go pay your bill."

When the portal opened, I heard a gasp from behind me and remembered that Ferguson and Alphonso were here. They ran over and fell at my feet as they begged us to take them too. I looked at them and told them it would be fine for them to tag along, I didn't see any harm to it, and we were just going to pay my mirror bill after all.

They leapt up and cheered as they ran towards the portal. Taking hands they danced their way into the boy as they sang "Going into portal land, teenage boys are holding hands!"

As they entered, I extended my own hand to Marco and with a wink said "Mess up twin secret handshake!"

As I expected, Marco just glanced at my hand before walking through the portal. With a laugh, I ran after everyone into Pixtopia.

When we arrived, a whole host of pixies flew over to greet us. Alphonso especially loved them and even exclaimed "Awww! They're so small!"

I led everyone to the Pixtopia Mirror Office and told them "Here we are!" I turned to Marco and asked him "How you gonna 'Star' this one up twinsy?"

"I already told you Star, I ain't no twin!" Marco marched into the small office as he proclaimed "Marco Diaz came into this world alone, alone!"

We crowded into the office, there wasn't enough room to stand up straight and Alphonso even had to pull Ferguson through the door since he didn't fit and got stuck. When he came crashing through, they fell on us, knocking everyone over into a giant heap.

As we extracted ourselves, we heard a little voice call out "Next!"

As Marco rose, he smacked his head on the low ceiling and I popped up, careful not to hit my head, and pushed him forwards as I said "Go ahead Marco, pay the nice Pixie."

He looked back and forth between us and the teller for a moment before scooting over to Ferguson and Alphonso and asking them "You guys gonna pitch in for this?"

This was great, neither of them had any money on them and I turned to him as I said "Marco! Did you forget to bring money, like I did?"

I had a huge, smug smile plastered to my face as I patted Marco on the back and giggled. Turning to me he said "No, as a matter of fact, I brought…"

He reached into his show and pulled out a wad of bills and as he held them up I sang "Marco's Emergency Cash Stash!"

He walked over to the teller and deposited the money on the counter as he said "This is for the Butterfly account, think that should cover it." With a confident laugh, he flipped a quarter to the teller and said "And uh, this is for you. Go buy yourself some of those thimble sized shoes."

Unexpectedly, the money was thrown back in Marco's face as the pixie said "I'm sorry sir, we only accept gold and jewels! You'll have to work off the bill in the shard mines!"

We all looked at each other in confusion before the floor suddenly dropped out from beneath us, revealing a chute we hadn't noticed. We all fell to the ground below. Fortunately I landed on Marco which helped cushion the fall. Unfortunately, Alphonso was right behind me and crashed on top of me. As we lay there, we heard Ferguson screaming as he fell and all of us braced for him to crush us. When the screaming stopped and there was no impact, we opened our eyes to see he had grabbed the ladder and slid down.

I looked at Marco then and said "Wow Marco, I could not have 'Starred' that one better up myself."

"Like I was supposed to know to bring jewels" he said, climbing out from beneath me as another pixie flew over to us.

"Welcome to the shard mines" he said with a cruel smirk, "Now get to picking!"

"I uh- look, I'm sure this was all a big misunders-" Marco was cut off as the pixie pulled out a whip and lashed towards Marco. Getting the message, we all picked up some pickaxes lying around and hastily got to work.

"Now what?" Marco whispered to me as we worked.

With a smile I said "Don't worry twinsy, I got this."

Brandishing my wand I went over to the pixie from earlier and channeling my power as I have so often before, I exclaimed "Strawberry Annihilation!" Nothing happened. I tried again and again to no effect, as the head pixie just watched on.

Laughing at my attempts he explained "Nice try Blondie, these mines block magic!"

Not one to be deterred by a lack of magic, I crouched down and said "Okay, you want some of this? Let's go little man!"

Right as we were about to go at it, Marco intervened, unnecessarily if I may add, I had the pixie right where I wanted him. "Whoa, whoa, easy Star. Okay, okay. Sir I'm sure we can work this out. See, this is the princess of Mewni, Star Butterfly." When I heard my name I ran over to swipe at the pixie some more while Marco held me back. "Her dad has… connections."

Unhelpfully, that was when Ferguson jumped over exclaiming "And I'm King Fergon!"

"Yeah, yeah. And I'm the Duchess of Daisyland!" said our captor sarcastically.

I stood watching in horror as Ferguson continued his foolish actions when he said "Oh, pleased to meet you Duchess of Daisyland" He hoisted his plunger at our guard.

* * *

" _What's a plunger?" asked Ruberiot._

" _So on Earth, they have these things called 'toilets'" Star explained, "I'm not sure what they are used for, but they are quite amazing. They look like a large bowl mixed with a throne and there is water in it. There is a lever on the side that flushes the water from the bowl and replaces it with new water. You can put anything in there!"_

" _Where does it go?" asked Ruberiot in quiet wonder._

" _That's the thing, nobody knows!"_

" _Wow! So then what is the plunger for?"_

" _Well, sometimes you put something in that is just too big and the plunger is able to remove it. I saw Marco use it once while I was testing out the toilet." Star explained, drawing a picture of a plunger on some of the scrap pare laying around so Ruberiot could get a visual._

" _Earth is quite fascinating!"_

" _I know! It's a pretty great place, especially with someone as awesome as Marco to always be with me and show me around" Star said, wistfully before continuing her story._

* * *

"No! The pleasure's all mine, King Fergon." Suddenly our captor called out "Take him away!"

Out of nowhere, a bunch of pixies came flying over and grabbed Ferguson by his makeshift cape. I could only stand there and watch as he said "Hang on, wait!" The guards pulled him over and dragged him away sobbing as the head pixie used his whip to get Marco and I back to work.

There was nothing we could do as Ferguson was dragged away and under the whip of our guard, we got back to work. While working, Alphonso suddenly started coughing. Except when he coughed, pink dust came from his lungs. While we crouched over him, one of the other workers said to us "Looks like your friend is getting a bad case of Pixie Lung."

"This is crazy!" exclaimed Marco as he threw down his pick axe. "We have to find a way out of here and save Ferguson."

"Sorry," said an old man, "There's no way out. Not that I've se-"

"What about that mine cart?" I cut him off as I pointed to a mine cart parked in front of a tunnel with a flashing exit sign above it.

"But that's the bathroom" said the old man.

Without really listening, Marco, Alphonso, and I ran over and hopped into the card and I called out for the other two to join us. Unfortunately our jailer heard us and turned to see us trying to make our escape. He yelled out "Guards! Seize them!"

As they charged us, Marco threw the lever that controlled the brakes. We started rolling down the track right as our two newest friends hopped into the cart, just ahead of the pixies. The pixies soon had a cart of their own though and took off after us down the track.

They started closing in behind us and the jerk of a head guard pulled out his whip and started snapping it at us. While this was happening, another pixie flew down in front of our cart and tossed a piece of crystal onto the tracks. When our cart hit the shard, we went tumbling through the air. Miraculously, we not only landed right-side up with everyone in the cart, we had moved onto a separate track that ran alongside the one we had been on.

As we rolled along, the other cart of pixies pulled up next to us and the head pixie started flailing with his whip. I called out to him "Hey! You should watch where you're going!"

"You watch where you're going!" he yelled, right before his track took a steep nose dive. Now separated and free, we continued rolling, hopeful to escape the mines. Up ahead the track took a sharp turn upwards, which I took as a good sign. Wonderfully, it deposited us right into the palace. When Marco, Alphonso, and I flopped out of the cart, Guards rushed over and brandished their swords at us. One even had a chainsaw.

"Hey!" called out a familiar voice. Looking over, I saw Ferguson of all people lounging on a pile of cushions and surrounded by food. "I was just about to come rescue you guys!"

Wasting no time, Alphonso launched himself at Ferguson and pulled him into a hug as he said "Ferguson! I was so worried!"

"Eh. Turns out they worship me here." At this, a group of pixies lifted him, using his cape as a cradle, and flew him to us as he said "And, check out my new girlfriend. That's right! I did it, I said girlfriend."

Next to him, one of the pixies, the only one not carrying him, said "He calls me sugar wings."

I exchanged a quick, worried glance with Marco as Ferguson was deposited in front of us and continued by saying "I'm so happy you guys are here. You're just in time for my wedding!"

As he spread his arm, a whole flurry of things happened all at once. Pixies with trumpets flew in playing music, drapes dropped from the ceiling, pews were arranges, carpet was rolled, pixies were seated, and I'm sure much more that I missed in the hubbub.

Next thing I knew, there was a pixie standing between Ferguson and his girlfriend as he said "Are you two ready to swear your undying love for each other?"

With a solemn look, Ferguson turned and looked at his girlfriend, Marco leapt up beside me and said "Don't! This is crazy! Ferguson, think about this! You're not ready for this kind of commitment! You're only fourteen! You still paint a face on your stomach and make it talk!"

With a jolt, Ferguson's face turned from a look of serenity to one of panic as what he was about to do finally set in. Lifting his shirt, Ferguson made the aforementioned face on his stomach say "He has a point."

"Empress" he said, "You're an amazing, flying Pixie lady and you're really cool, but I didn't really think this through. I'm sorry, I can't marry you."

With a small smile on her face she calmly said "Guards, kill them all."

Suddenly the air was filled with pixies who were wielding swords five times larger than they were. As everyone scattered, I leapt from my spot with a devious smile on my face. Battles were much more my speed than the wedding had been.

Alphonso was unsurprisingly struggling, being dragged across the floor by a pixie. Marco, wonderful Marco, however was putting up a great fight. I saw him chop one pixie out of the air before pulling down one of the drapes and using it to ensnare the pixie attacking Alphonso. Turning my attention back to the pixie swinging his sword at me, I parried his attacks with my wand as I retreated through the throne room and up some stairs.

I was rushed by half a dozen other guards and defended valiantly. Working fast, I cleared enough space to cast a spell and channeling my magic, I cried out "Winter Storm, Hyper, Blow!"

I unleashed the magic and it sent out a ring of frost towards my enemies. Caught in the magic, those that weren't blown out the window were frozen solid. I pulled out my dimensional scissors, ready to get out of there as I took off to help Marco and his friends.

I slid down the banister and opened a portal near Marco and Ferguson as I called out to them "Let's go!"

"No!" cried the pixie empress, "I haven't killed you yet!"

I wasn't about to let anyone kill Marco, and readying my wand, I cried out "Rainbow, Fly Trap!"

With a blast of magic, I materialized a rainbow behind Marco and Ferguson as they approached. When the pixies hit it however, they were stuck, unable to chase us as we made our escape.

Back in my room, I flopped onto my bed as I said "That's it, I'm switching service providers!"

"Yeah, good call" said Marco from where he stood by the foot of my bed. "Star, I feel bad. I think I may have ruined Ferguson's one chance at love. Maybe we are mess up twins."

As much as I wanted to tease him, he sounded so dejected I couldn't do anything but explain everything to him. Sitting up I told him "Oh Marco, That pixie didn't love Ferguson, she just wanted to eat him!"

"Really?"

"And let's be honest, Ferguson does look delicious." I hopped off my bed and stood next to Marco as we laughed together

"Yeah, I guess nobody's perfect."

"Uh, why are you guys talkin about me like I'm not here?" asked Ferguson. In fact, I had forgotten he was there, all the stress from the adventure and I had settled into my normal routine with Marco by default, a routine I don't want to ever lose. Ferguson then continued by pointing out something else we had forgotten when he asked "And, where's Alphonso?"

There was a moment of panic as Marco and I realized we had left Alphonso in the pixie dimension. With a small amount of planning though, Marco and I made a mad dash back to pixtopia for Alphonso. After a brief explanation that he wouldn't be king and would instead be eaten, it was only a minor repeat of our previous wedding crash before we got Alphonso back to Earth.

After sending the boys back home, Marco and I went to watch a movie with some of Marco's super awesome nachos as we unwound from our hectic day. Shortly after finishing the nachos, and well before the end of the movie, I passed out on Marco's shoulder and thankfully he let me sleep.


	14. Lobster Claws

When fighting Ludo, things aren't always easy. Sure Marco and I usually mop the floor with them, only expending minimal effort, but sometimes they get lucky. One time, while we were fighting, things almost went horribly wrong.

It all started fine, the monsters invaded and we got to fighting. Marco was fighting the giraffe monster at one point and kicked him in his weak spot, his neck. I was watching Marco fight, as I often do. When I saw Marco kick the giraffe monster, I was in midair, having jumped to better hit on of the larger monsters. On landing, I blasted another monster with my magic.

What I didn't see however was the deer-like monster sneaking up behind me. Suddenly I hear someone yell "Gotcha!" as I am swept up in a crushing embrace. I let out a scream, more of surprise than fear, as he hoists me into the air. This gets Marco's attention and he turns to help. Unfortunately with him distracted, his opponents were easily able to tackle him to the ground.

With both of us subdued, Ludo yelled out from where he stood overseeing the fight "Yes! Yes! Now somebody grab the wand! Lobster Claws, you!"

"Oh!" said one of Ludo's minions. He was a giant lobster creature, aptly named Lobster Claws. He had been more standing off to the side than actually helping during this battle, and it took him a moment to realize what was happening. One he realized where he was and what he needed to do, he started hyping himself up by saying "Yeah! I got this! Go Red Boy! Go Red Boy! GO RED BOY!"

"Stop flexing your thorax and get it already!" yelled Ludo as Lobster Claws danced in place.

"This is happening now!" cried out Lobster Claws before scuttling over to where I was held. With a yell, he drew back his pincer, preparing to strike. With a small whimper, I closed my eyes and gripped my wand as I waited for him to grab it. Next thing I knew, I heard him yell "Boo yah!"

I opened my eyes confused, I could still feel the wand in my hand. I looked at him and saw what everyone else saw. Lobster claws was holding aloft what looked like an antler and dancing as he said "I got it! I got it! You got clawed!"

All of the on looking monsters let out a collective gasp as they realized what he was holding. Turning, I saw he had clipped one of the antlers from the head of the monster holding me. He let out a grunt of confusion and loosened his grip. I pushed myself free from his grasp and his hands went immediately to his head where he started hopping and grunting in sadness.

Not wasting a moment or paying much heed to my ex-captor's distress, I used a blast of magic to launch myself into the air above the battlefield. Channeling magic into my wand, I cried out "Poison, Crystal, Cupcake, Kiss!" and loosed a blast of magical cupcakes at the monsters below.

The first group of monsters were pummeled with the confections, and were quickly dispatched. As I approached the peak of my flight, I blasted another group of monsters into submission. One monster seemed excited about the prospect of cupcakes, but a well-placed shot to his eye had him quickly incapacitated. With a masterful flip, I repositioned myself and fired the final bit of the spell at Ludo, knocking him to the ground with a grunt.

With the monsters taken care of, I landed near Marco and helped him to his feet before walking over to where Ludo was crumpled on the ground and saying "That was fun! But we gotta go to school. OOOh, you're on my backpack…"

Pulling it out from beneath himself, Ludo held it up with a disgruntled "Here."

I snatched it from him and Marco and I took off to catch the bus, having learned long ago to make time for battling Ludo in our morning routine.

* * *

It was a typical day at school, lots of interesting classes like history and lots of boring classes like math. Soon though the day was over and we were back at Marco's place. "Earth history is so cool!" I was telling him as we walked into the kitchen, "Ben Franklin blowing up that kite monster with his electric lightning powers? Like whoa."

"Yeah, that's not what happened" said Marco with a chuckle as the laser puppies congregated at his feet, ready to go on a walk.

That was when I noticed Lobster Claws still out in the back yard. I told Marco, "Hey look."

I pulled out my wand as Marco grabbed something from the kitchen to use as a weapon and said "Lets go."

Quietly we snuck out of the house before charging the monster. With a scream, I launched myself and tackled him to the ground. Rolling to a halt, I aimed my wand at the back of his head and said, "You want seconds on those cupcakes?"

Instead of responding however, Lobster Claws just laid there underneath me with his face in the dirt. Confused, I said "Uh, this is the part where you fight back."

"Go ahead" came a muffled cry from the monster. Turning his head to look at me he exclaimed "Blast me! Do it!"

In my surprise at the sudden outburst, I jumped back into Marco's comforting hold. As I collected myself and extracted myself from the safety of his arms, Marco said "Are you okay?"

"Well… Uh… the thing is…" As Lobster Claws spoke, tears started to form in his eyes before breaking forth into all out sobbing as he said "Master Ludo fired me! I can never show my face on Mewni again!"

I stood watching, dumbstruck at the scene playing out before me, so many thoughts and emotions were whirling through my brain. Marco however surprised me even more when he said "Oh man, he's taking this really hard!"

* * *

" _You mean he felt_ sympathy _for the monster?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Yeah, he did" said Star._

" _But monsters are evil!"_

" _At the time, I agreed with you, I thought all monsters were evil, as you will hear."_

" _At the time?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Well, a lot has happened on Earth, and now… I'm not so sure."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Well, you'll just have to wait and see won't you?" said Star with a mischievous grin as she resumed her story._

* * *

"This is probably just a monster trick" I told him, swinging around to blast Lobster Claws.

Knowing what I was about to do, Marco reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me back as he said "I don't think he's faking it. We should do something."

I however still had my doubts, but Marco is Marco and I was at least going to hear him out. So I asked him "Like what?"

"I don't know! But we can't just leave him like this" said Marco.

I was unconvinced, ready to blast the monster back to whatever den it had called from as I asked "Marco, why do you even care? He's a monster! Monsters are the bad guys!"

As if to prove my point, while we had been talking, Lobster Claws had scared some small animals out of a nearby tree and chose that moment to let loose a battle cry and start chasing one.

"I don't have to be bad" piped up Lobster Claws from beside us. "In fact, I've always secretly wanted to be good."

I was skeptical and crossed my arms as Marco trustingly said "Really? Well, maybe we can show you how."

"What?" My eyes flew open in shock as I turned to Marco and said "That's crazy! Monsters. Are. Evil! It's just their nature."

We watched as Lobster Claws held the cute squirrel he had caught, only instead of dangling from his grasp, he had let it climb up onto the top of his claw. Releasing the squirrel he said "No its not, look!"

"See" said Marco as he turned to look at me. Unconvinced I gave him a small pout of displeasure.

"Yeah" said Lobster Claws. However when we turned to look at him, he had the squirrel in his mouth has he tried to eat it. Swallowing it whole he said "See?"

I shot a look at Marco as we ran over to save the squirrel. "No, you can't just eat whatever you want. No spit up the squirrel."

With a horrible retching noise, the squirrel was thankfully regurgitated. I picked it up, threw Marco a harsh look, and said "I'm going to bandage him up. Marco, Make sure your new friend stays out of trouble."

After bandaging up the squirrel with a quick blast from my wand and some supplies from inside, I set the squirrel free as Marco said "Okay, Lobster Claws, the key to being good is do unto others as you would have them do to you!"

At that moment, a cyclist passed us and Lobster Claws lashed out, knocking the man from his seat. We watched him tumble away screaming, hands to our mouths in shock as Lobster Claws said "Like that?"

"Actually, that's 100% wrong. And you want to do the opposite" explained Marco. "Now say you're sorry."

"That's alright, I landed on a sprinkler" said the cyclist as he picked himself back up and remounted his bike.

"This is too hard" complained Lobster Claws. "I'm never gonna get this."

"Yeeeah, you should just give up" I interjected, smirking at him in challenge. I just wanted him to prove me right.

"Okay, don't listen to her" said Marco, refusing to give up on Lobster Claws. "The next time you get the urge to punch somebody, just imagine how it would feel if it happened to you."

Pausing for a moment, the monster seemed to look within himself before squinting and saying "I've got the urge!" After a brief pause, he straightened up, looking surprised, and said "Wow, that totally would have hurt."

That was when the child started crying. Turning to look, Marco, Lobster Claws, and I walked over to where a small girl was crying at the base of a tree. Marco reached out a hand as he said "Aw, what's wrong?"

"My kitty is stuck in a tree" sobbed the little girl, pointing up. We looked and sure enough there was a small, white kitten stuck in the lower branches of the tree.

Turning to the monster, ever thoughtful Marco said "Lobster Claws, this is your chance."

Glancing up the tree to where the kitten hung, some twenty feet up, Lobster Claws took off in his strange backwards run. He scaled the tree, and within a few seconds was up next to the kitten.

"Careful with my Mister Mittens!" cried the girl as Lobster Claws snatched up the kitten in his claws. As he slid down the tree, I watched on with my arms crossed as I waited for him to act up.

"Thank you so much Mr. Lobster Man" cried the girl when he offered up the kitten.

"I knew there was some good in him" Marco told me with a smirk. Conveniently, that was when we heard the muffled yowl from beside us. Lobster Claws had stuffed the cat in his mouth, similar to how he had tried to eat the squirrel not even tem minutes prior. Marco and I rushed over to him as we cried out in alarm and grabbed the kitten from his mouth.

"Now do you see what we're dealing with" I said, glaring at Marco.

Pointing at the kitten with a smile, Marco tried to calm me as he said "Mister Mittens is fine, no harm no foul."

Looking up, we saw Lobster Claws had replaced the kitten we had taken from him with the little girl in the few seconds we weren't looking. Tossing aside the kitten, we ran in to rescue her. After pulling her out, I had Marco watch Lobster Claws while I reunited cat and child.

After we sent them on their way, I looked on tiredly as Marco said to Lobster Claws "Okay that was my bad. I assumed you knew this, but you can't eat children."

"Really, not even annoying ones?"

"Never!"

"Help!" cried a voice off beside us. We turned to see a burning home as a woman called out "Help! Help me! My baby is still inside!"

"Your baby?" said Marco and I at the same time.

Lobster Claws stopped us though as he put a claw on both our chests and said "Don't worry, Red Boy has got this."

Turning, he did his backwards run and scuttled into the blaze as he shouted "And I'm totally not gonna eat it!"

Worried for both the baby and Lobster claws, I pulled out my wand and cried out "Cotton Candy, Fire, Extinguish!"

With a blast of magic and a quiet "poof", all of the fire turned into cotton candy. All three of us took off into the now safe house to find the baby.

"My baby! Oh my baby, my sweet baby grand piano!" said the woman as she ran over to a piano sitting in the main room and hugged it. She whispered to it "Were you scared? Tell me what you're feeling."

She pressed a key and the piano started to play itself as she burst out into song with the tune.

"I was wondering where that piano music was coming from" said Marco.

"Um, where's Lobster Claws?"

We turned to see a hole in the wall, leading out into the back yard. Marco and I approached, hearing what sounded like devouring coming from the backyard. Looking out, we saw he had busted through the fence and was chugging the contents of an ice cream vendor's cart while holding the man in his other claw.

"Well he's not eating humans, that's a step forward" said Marco optimistically.

"Whatever" I said, unconvinced. "Let's just go save that poor man already?"

We made our way over to where Lobster Claws was and Marco told him, "Hey, you can't do that buddy. Put the man and his cart down and we will see if we can't go find some other way for you to be good."

Eventually we got everything squared away and started making our way downtown where hopefully we could find something easy for him. We soon spotted an old woman crossing the street and Marco said "Okay, here's an easy one. Help the old lady cross the street."

We watched as he scuttled over and told the old lady "I'll help you Miss."

"I'd say he's starting to get this" said Marco as he gave me one of his amazing smiles.

Unconvinced I flashed Marco a glare as I said "Well I'm not taking my eyes off him for one sec-"

With a roar, the city burst into flames. Marco and I screeched in unison as we turned back to look at Lobster Claws. Where not even a moment before had been him helping the old lady across the street, he now had a car above his head and a backdrop of roaring flames. As we ran past the fleeing woman to stop him, a cyclist rode past us with a flaming helmet. Marco went to calm down the monster as I got to work clearing out the fire. After an unpleasantly long period, the last of the fires were put out. I wanted to yell at Marco about how foolish this was, but all of the magic had drained me and instead just motioned that I wanted to go home.

Having recovered some of my energy on the walk home, we all sat down in front of the television to watch the news. Marco and Lobster Claws sat apprehensively on the couch as I curled up in a worried ball on the floor. When the report came on, the broadcaster said "Tragedy today as a rampaging lobster man destroyed four city blocks. Miraculously no one was injured but one cyclist mourns the loss of his new bike."

"It was our first outing together" said the cyclist in an interview, sobbing into his hands "Now I have nothing."

Turning off the television, Marco said with a chuckle "Yeah, you know how the news sensationalizes things. I still believe you can be good, but until then, I'm gonna find some rubber bands for your claws."

I had a smirk on my face as Marco walked by and as I took a deep breath to tell him off, he cut me off by saying "Save it."

So instead of saying anything, I went back to smugly looking at Marco's retreating form. At least I was until Lobster claws said "Why is being good so hard?"

I stood up as I told him "The problem is, Marco's trying to make you something you're not. You're a vile, repulsive monster, why fight it?"

"Yeah, I am repulsive! I shouldn't be helping humans, I should be hurting them. You in particular."

"And I wish I could just get back to smashing your face! Maybe there's a way we can both get what we want."

I explained my plan to Lobster Claws, a way for him to get back in with Ludo while I get Marco to myself again, and stop having to look after the monster of course. He smiled as I outlined my plan and agreed to go along with it while Marco was distracted.

Moving fast, I grabbed a hammock and set it up in the back yard. I hopped in and pretended to fall asleep, knowing that such an opportunity would be quickly seized by Ludo. Sure enough, within a minute or two I heard the unmistakable sound of a portal opening and Ludo's band emerged.

Cracking one eye, I watched them approach and as Ludo reached for the wand I sat up and said "Ludo! I was just dreaming of kicking your butt!"

"Get her!" screamed Ludo as the monsters rushed me. The first monster that made it to me was Three-Eyed Potato Baby. He was quickly dispatched when I kicked him to the side and blasted him through the back door of the Diaz house. Behind him was a large group of monsters who I drove back with a blue blast that cut a line in the ground in front of them. The first to recover was a large, red monster with a horse head, but he was easily blasted away with the residual energy from my previous spell.

The next attacker was a two-headed monster. As I saw him approach, he leapt at me, trying to knock me out of the hammock. Instead of letting him collide, I leapt to more stable ground next to Marco as the monster bounced off the hammock and ricocheted towards us. Smiling, I took aim and blasted him back across the lawn.

Marco screamed in surprise "They're back?"

"Yeah, I lured them here. To get Lobster claws his old job back" I whispered to him. "I'm gonna let him beat me up. Play along."

My explanation was cut short as the next wave of monsters closed in. Blasting the closest in the chest, I ran over to where Ludo stood, pointed my wand at him, and said "Alright Ludo, I got more than cupcakes this time!"

When nothing happened, I stood up and nearly yelled "I said, I got more than cupcakes this time."

"GO RED BOY!" screamed Lobster Claws, vaulting over the wall to the neighbor's yard when he finally heard my signal. Landing in front of Ludo and his monsters, he threw a horribly telegraphed punch my way and I pretended to take the hit. With a faked cry of pain, I fell to the ground as he said "Boo-ya-ka-sha! Don't worry boss, I got this."

With a roar, he ran over to where I had picked myself up at while Ludo said "Boss? Didn't I fire you?"

With wonderfully beautiful acting, I pretended to fight Lobster Claws. He would throw fake punches while I pretended to fire off spells at him. It was so good I even heard some of the monsters complimenting his fighting skills and Ludo even said "Yes, yes, I do see marked improvement, but I'd _really_ be impressed if you would just grab THE WAND!"

It seemed like my work was done and Lobster Claws was ready to go back to his old job so I fell to the ground and cried out "He's defeated me!"

As I lay there, floundering on the ground in an amazing performance, Lobster Claws reached over and snatched the wand from my hand. My first reaction was anger and I sat up indignantly while Ludo cheered. Then came the dread. With a worried squeak from me and a terrified scream from Marco, the wand started to glow. Eventually the whole backyard was bathed in the light of the wand. When the light cleared, I saw the wand had transformed for its new holder much like it had done for me.

It was dark purple and light purple. The bell of the wand was solid black and just beneath it were two spikey, claw-like protrusions. As we watched, the bell opened like an eye, revealing a pink iris with a black, silted pupil at the center.

"What's happening?" said Lobster Claws. First his pupils dilated to fill his eyes, turning them completely black and a sinister purple glow illuminated where his pupils should have been. His body started shaking as the energy flooded into him and then out when he couldn't stem the flow his dark nature was asking for. The outpouring caused smaller objects to start floating into the sky as he said "Being bad feels so good!"

I ran up to him and screamed "How could you do this? I was trying to help you!"

He turned to me and the strangest thing happened. With a groan, his eyes returned to normal and the wand changed again, this time into a cute red wand with little pincers below the bell and a giant doe eye, full of innocence, filling the plate.

"Whoa!" I was floored, having not expected his goodness to be able to manifest itself in the wand like that.

"Don't listen to her!" screamed Ludo, causing Lobster Claws to turn back to Ludo and his more sinister form. "She's the enemy!"

"No!" I shouted, causing him to turn back to me and his good side. "I saw the good in you! Don't do it!"

"Act like a monster and give it to me!" said Ludo, drawing the dark side out. Only this time, it was different and the two aspects of Lobster Claws seemed to struggle.

Seeing my chance I cried out "Lobster Claws, please!"

Then the wand started alternating between forms, one after the other and picking up speed. I watched, horrified that it would settle on the evil aspect. Thankfully, Marco was there and had the sense to do something before the whole situation went bad. Running over to Lobster Claws, Marco kicked him in the chin and laid him out flat on his back.

This knocked the wand from Lobster Claws' grasp and I recovered my wits as I leapt to catch the wand. When it landed in my hand, there was a swirl of light as the wand changed back into the form I know and love. While Ludo ranted about Marco, I leapt into action. Springing off the wall, I channeled my magic and cried "Stardust, Daisy, Devastation!"

With a yellow beam of light, the spell flew to where all the monsters were gathered before exploding. In a blast of yellow pollen, the monsters were scattered and defeated. As they picked themselves up, Ludo opened a portal and yelled "Retreat!" Needing not to be told twice, the monsters rushed for the safety of the other side of the portal.

When Lobster Claws approached the portal however, Ludo stopped him and said "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You! You had the wand in the palm of your claws! What did it feel like?"

"It kind of tingled."

"I knew it!" cried Ludo, almost shaking with joy. "I'm so jealous, can I touch your claw? After you!"

Marco however was not going to call it quits. Running to the portal he yelled "Don't do it Lobster Claws! What about wanting to be good?"

His answer was clear when a claw came through the portal and punched Marco across the yard. When he landed in a heap in front of me I said "Huh, Marco, you were right. There was some good in him after all!"

Unfolding himself, Marco groaned "Not much."


	15. Sleep Spells

One day, I was awoken by the sound of Marco screaming. My eyes snapped open, I leapt out of bed, and I took off down the stairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I noticed two things. First, someone had turned the living room of Marco's house into a jungle and second, that some kind of giant cat was attacking Marco. Thinking fast, I pulled out my wand and shouted "Mega, Explosive, Crystal, Laser!" This unleashed a beam from my wand that very quickly got the attention of the monster attacking Marco. It tossed him aside and pounced at the spot where the laser impacted the ground. Swinging the beam around, I lured the monster out of the little clearing as I cooed "Here kitty, kitty."

"Whoa, thanks for saving me… again" said Marco as Ran to check on him. Pulling out a pen and notepad he continued by saying "That makes it twenty-eight saves for you, and four for me… but who's counting?"

Looking around at the renovated room, I said "Wow Marco, I just love what you've done with the place!" At that point, a purple and green owl looking creature flew over and landed on my head. It let loose a squawk and started pecking my forehead as I said "Awww, so cute."

"What? I didn't do this!"

"Well somebody did."

"Somebody?" said Marco as he looked at me disbelievingly, "Birds and rainbows and whatever that is."

The weird creature Marco pointed to looked like a poodle, but then had a human torso and was eating a bag of chips. When Marco pointed to it, it said "Sup."

"This has to be you" continued Marco.

"Sorry, wasn't me" I said as the bird continued its adorable pecking on my forehead.

With a stoic look, Marco reached to his side, grabbed a vine, and pulled. It brought down a host of other vines, revealing a ten foot tall carving of my face. Marco simply looked to me for an answer.

"Eh, looks more like your dad's work" I told him.

Sliding from the carving's mouth, hammer and chisel in hand, Mr. Diaz said "This was my work. The rest of this, no."

Smiling at Marco I turned and walked to get some food for breakfast, ignoring the friendly scowl aimed my way.

* * *

That night, the strangest thing happened and I awoke to the sound of Marco calling my name. With a yawn, I opened my eyes to see I was standing in the middle of my room and said "Morning Marco, morning beanbag chair monster."

Then I realized that it was not morning and Marco was under attack. He was caught up in a paper tornado while being attacked by both my lamp and my beanbag chair. Snapping to full alert, I readied my wand and cried out "Marco! Lightning, Twinkle, Rescue!" and with a blast of magic, everything reverted to its inanimate form.

Marco let out a yelp as the magic struck, but as things returned to normal, he just stood there panting. After a pause, he pulled out his pen and pad and said "You saved me, that's twenty-nine to four, huh."

Crouching down, I scooped a miniature, sleeping, adorable narwhal off the floor where a pile of them lay. Turning to Marco I said "What happened?"

"You were spelling in your sleep!" With a yell, Marco kicked my lamp across the room, still afraid it would attack him. "That must be why you don't remember turning our living room into a jungle!"

"Oh no! You gotta fix me Diaz" I cried, not wanting to seriously injure anyone I shouldn't.

With a gasp and the most adorable doe eyed look, Marco said "Now's my chance to save you… with psychology!"

"Psychology?"

"Psychology!"

"Yeah! Psychology! What is it?"

"Psychology is like karate for your mind"" explained Marco. He reached out and grabbed my head as he said "I'm gonna dig deep in your brain to see what makes you tick."

"Oooh. Yeah, we have something like that on Mewni" I said, describing to him our practice of launching people from catapults to help cure them.

When I finished explaining, Marco just looked at me and said "Yeah, this is pretty different. Now, before we start, I must transform myself."

"Transform?"

Without explaining, Marco crossed his arms over his chest as he began to spin quite quickly. Coming to a stop he started pulling items out of his pockets as he said their names. "Glasses! Paper! Clothes! Book!" I'm not sure exactly where he got it all from, but it was quite cute to watch as he put on the costume and said "Dr. Marco, PHD!"

"What does PHD stand for?"

"Pretty handsome dude" said Mrs. Diaz, walking by the entrance to my room. Smiling, I couldn't help but agree, it was quite the handsome look on Marco.

"Mom!" cried Marco in protest, "Go back to bed!"

Taking me to the living room, Marco led me to the couch and together we extracted it from the jungle. Marco had me lay on it while he went and got a chair from his mother's study. Rolling up beside the couch, Marco said "Alright Miss Butterfly, I'm going to administer a series of psychological tests yo uncover what's bothering you."

"Oooh, tests! Sounds fun! Oh wait, no it doesn't."

Undeterred, Marco wrote something on his pad and revealed it as he told me what it said "Test number 1, role playing! I want you to pretend to be someone close to you."

That one was easy. With a quick blast of magic I was decked out in ponytail, red hoodie, and skinny jeans. Hopping up from the couch I did a little jig as I said in a poor imitation of Marco, "Hi I'm Marco! My skinny jeans are awesome! Oooh, here comes Jackie-Lynn Thomas, I'm gonna impress her with my karate! I got this cute little mole."

With a grunt, I saw Marco write something on his pad before saying and revealing "Test number two, art therapy!"

I had changed back into my pajamas and moved back to the couch, making a mustache with my hair as Marco talked. Suddenly he thrust a paintbrush at me and said "Paint me a picture of your childhood."

He guided me to an easel he had set up and sat me down with paints and brush, all of which he got from his father's workspace I assumed. I started painting and immediately thought of a warnicorn, there were plenty of those in my childhood. Next I painted the heads of Ludo and two of his minions. After the heads were completed, I connected them all to one lizard body. It looked really cool. Next up I painted myself holding out my wand. But it looked boring so I painted a snake coiled up around me. When I got to the snake's head however, I swapped it to be a snaky version of my mother. Finally I painted the ground and sky, complete with rainbow, to finish it off.

As I went back to touch up the monster, Marco said "Such depth, so many symbols, what does it say about your childhood?"

Turning, I told him unapologetically, "I was just drawing unicorns and monsters cuz they're cool."

With a small roar, I swiped at the canvas, letting my imagination run free. Marco facepalmed as I continued to let out sounds. Suddenly he exclaimed "Test three! Ink blot test!"

Pulling up a second chair and a pile of papers, Marco flipped up the first one and said "Tell me what you see on this paper."

"An ink blot! I win!"

After resting his forehead in his hand he gestured to the paper which had the mess of ink on it and said "Okay, no, no, no. What does this remind you of?"

"A fat porcupine!"

"Oh yes, that's good" said Marco as he flipped to the next image. "What about this one?"

"A little alien guy in a gnome cap" with a gasp I asked him "Maybe I'm sleep spelling cuz I'm secretly a little alien guy in a gnome cap."

"Uh, no" said Marco, flipping to the next page. "Now what about- ugh, wait, hold on this is a mistake."

I wasn't listening though as the shock of what it reminded me of temporarily shut down my brain. Without thinking I said "That reminds me of my overbearing mother suffocating me with all the duties of becoming a queen for the rest of my life."

Marco sat there shocked for a moment as I snapped out of my trance. That psychology stuff was spooky. Marco set aside his papers with a happy look on his face and said "I think we may have found the root of your problem. You have mother issues!"

"Yay! I have mother issues!" I exclaimed, smile on my face and clapping my hands.

"No, that's bad."

"Aww, I have mother issues" I moaned, slouching forward.

"It's okay Star" said Marco, "Identifying the problem is the first step to recovery."

"Recovery!" I said, excited to be fixed.

* * *

That night was the worst wake up of them all. I woke from my sleep spelling when Marco fell on top of me and we crashed to the floor. From on top of me, Marco let out a moan as I saw something float down in front of me. I looked closer and said "Undypants? Oh no, Marco's naked!"

"No! I'm in my jam-jams" Marco said as he climbed off of me. Pointing he said "Look!"

Standing over us was this purple elephant looking person. She was about twice as tall as me and was easily four times as thick. As Marco and I looked at her she yelled "I want your face!"

"Oh! You weren't sleep spelling, you were just defending yourself against that sleep goblin… elephant…" Marco said, petering off at the end.

"Wow, I'm hardcore!"

"I came here for your face!" she yelled, cutting off any further conversation. "To steal your face! You hurt me in my butt!"

She turned to show us her butt. Even through her dress we could see the bumps left by my attacks and there was a narwhal still embedded too. Shuddering, I looked away as Marco almost dry heaved next to me. I asked her "Could you stop yelling?"

She paused for a moment, looking at me like I was crazy before she yelled "Well I'm sorry, I don't have any ears. Camera phone." She randomly pulled out her phone, posed, and took a picture of herself. Then she sidled up to the window before continuing as she explained. "I'm on the run from St. O's!"

I told her "Well you can't stay here, I don't wanna go to St. O's!"

"Oh you're going to St. O's. You see, we're both big girls. We got the same highs and lows, the same east and west! You can hardly tell us apart, Except for in the face. Camera phone." She paused her explanation to take another picture of herself for no reason I could see. "So I'm gonna laser finger your face off of your head. Oh you can have my face. See I'm gonna wear your face and you can go to jail, cuz you look like me! It's just a classic face switch scenario."

I looked at Marco when she finished talking and after a brief pause we both busted out laughing. Marco managed to get out between gasps for air "Oh that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

"It's not funny" she said, unamused. Then without warning she reached out and grabbed me. With a yelp I was pulled off my feet and took off running.

"Star!" yelled Marco before running after me. "Don't worry Star, I'll save you!"

My captor hopped onto the railing when she got to the stairs and slid down it with Marco right behind us. We popped out into the jungle through the mouth of my carved head and she took off running again. She paused to sit on the couch we excavated earlier and pulled out a newspaper. On the cover was a picture of her face. Clamping my mouth shut with her trunk, my captor started reading the back of her newspaper as Marco ran past us.

After a moment, Marco walked back up to the couch and cleared his throat. Lowering the paper, we all looked at each other for a quick moment before my captor grabbed a hanging vine and swung away. Moving quickly, Marco grabbed his own vine and swung after us.

With a thump, we slammed into the wall of the roof and crashed through it to the outside. Crawling to her feet, my captor said "Camera phone" and snapped a picture of herself. After the picture, she took off running with Marco right behind us. As she ran past the antenna, it caught in my hair for a brief second before snapping back into Marco's face, causing him to let out a yelp of pain.

Running to the tower, my captor jumped up and suctioned onto the overhanging section of the roof with her trunk and said "Nose Grab!" before hoisting us up and starting the climb to the top. Making it to the top of the roof, she cut open a portal with her dimensional scissors and let out a maniacal laugh.

Before she carried me through the portal, I heard Marco yell "Stop!"

Looking over, we saw him making his way across the roof as he struggled to maintain his balance. Leaning over, my captor yelled out "Be careful on this roof! It is slippery from the evening dew!"

Sensing her grip relaxing, I kicked out at her, trying to get away. Unfortunately her arms were long enough that she managed to retain her hold on me and I screamed "Let me go you wierdy weirdo!"

Pulling me back in, my captor said "Is Marco small or is he just really far away? I can't tell. Laser finger." Saying that, a beam shot from her finger and onto my forehead. It didn't hurt but I was no less worried for my face.

Whimpering, I yelled out for help "Marco!"

With a heroic yell, Marco leapt for the roof but was unable to make the jump and fell back onto the roof with a thud. When he landed, Marco's glasses fell from his pajamas and looked at them for a second before snatching them up and leaping to his feet where he yelled "Glasses! Paper! Clothes! Book! Dr. Marco, PHD! You don't have to do this, I have an A in psychology! I can help you!"

"No thank you!" yelled my captor, turning to go through the portal. As I was carried away, I looked at Marco pitifully, knowing it might be the last time I ever see him and yelled "Use your mind karate!"

"Listen to me!" he cried.

"I already told you, I don't have any ears" said my captor.

Running to the base of the tower, he yelled "Well maybe that's why you're in this mess!"

Pausing, my captor turned around and deactivated her laser finger before saying "Okay, I do have ears… but I don't use them… to listen to people… The only people I listen to… is… my mind." I looked up at her, feeling a little bit of sympathy. "And right now… my mind is telling me… to steal her face." And the feeling was gone.

Undeterred, Marco took off his glasses and said "But you can't keep running from your problems, when you steal other people's faces, all you're really stealing is your future."

"But I like my future."

I smiled, hoping everything was resolved and that I could go free. After a short pause however, my captor exclaimed "I don't like my future! Camera phone!"

My look of hope turned to one of terror as my captor reactivated her finger laser and backed into the dimensional portal while laughing maniacally. At that point, Marco gave up on reasoning and threw the book at her. Smacking her in the forehead, I was dropped from her grasp and she fell over stunned before falling to the ground below.

Grabbing Marco's book, I hopped down onto the roof beside him and looked for my old captor. She had landed right next to the giant cat monster that had terrorized Marco that morning and when she saw it she let out a yelp of fear. Wincing, Marco and I watched them fight until the robots from St. O's showed up to take her away. They quickly took down both cat and woman, restraining my old foe and escorting her to the portal leaving Earth.

When they had left I turned to Marco, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said "Wow Marco, you really saved my face."

"Yes! Finally" said Marco as he put another check in his notepad.

"I don't get it" I told him, "Why is this tally thing such a big deal to you?"

"Uhhh, I don't know" admitted Marco, "I guess you're this magic princess from another dimension, and I'm just…"

I would be lying if I said my heart didn't melt inside my chest from how great Marco was. Telling me he thought so much of me and viewed me like that made me the happiest girl around. Smiling, I picked up his glasses, put them on, and said "Star, PHD. Marco, you are awesome. We don't need to get caught up in who saves who, all that matters is that we have each other's back."

"Yeah" said Marco with a smile. Then, jumping to his feet and pointing at me Marco said "But this time, I totally saved you!"

With a yelp, he slipped and started sliding down the roof, only stopping as he grabbed the gutter. When I got down to him, he said "You're right, we shouldn't keep track anymore!"

Reaching down I pulled him back up onto the roof and with a quick hug of appreciation we climbed in one of the windows of my tower and went to bed.


	16. Blood Moon Ball

Some days are better than others. This was not one of those days.

I was sitting in at my desk for math class, so I was already in a foul mood when the ground shook a little. At this point I was already used to the tremors that pass through the area every once in a while and barley looked up from my mental preparations. Mrs. Skullnick was sure to be upset with me, as she always was and I hadn't slept well the night before.

With hardly a sound, the door to the classroom opened and in marched the last person I expected to see in my math class. For instead of Mrs. Skullnick, in walked my demon ex-boyfriend Tom. His feet wreathed in flames, Tom walked to the aisle in which I sat. Ingrid, the girl who sat in front of me, let out a small gasp of hope and sat up straighter, hoping he had come for her. I also wished he had come for her, or anyone else for that matter, but I knew he was here for me.

Dashing aside any uncertainty, Tom used his magic to launch Ingrid and her desk up into the air where he held them suspended as he levitated off the ground and over to where I sat. Throwing aside his sunglasses, Tom held out his hand and said "Hey Star, I'm here to take you…" He paused for dramatic effect as he summoned a crescent moon made of fire in his palm before continuing. "to the Blood Moon Ball."

Slowly, I rose from my chair, walked to his other side, grabbed his hand and started dragging him from the classroom as I said "Nope, no, no, nope. Nuh-uh, no way, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope."

By then I had dragged him back to his carriage from the underworld that he used to move between dimensions and blasted the door off with my wand. Shoving him into the carriage through its new door, I told him "You need to leave, right now. Take your carriage, and fire, and dead horse, and go back to the underworld."

I stood there for a moment, silently fuming until the skeleton horse pulling the carriage turned and said "Wait, I'm dead?"

Unamused and done with Tom, I stalked away from Tom and headed back to class. I didn't make it far before Tom said "Aw, c'mon _Starship_ " and before I could process anything a wave of fire rolled underneath me and carried me into his waiting arms. Holding me in his arms, Tom said "It's the Blood Moon Ball! It only happens once every 667 years."

As he was talking, Tom levitated up into the air and with a spin, dipped me as if we were dancing before staring into my eyes. As much as his charming words, charming actions, and pet names reminded me for how I had felt when we dated, just looking at him reminded me of our breakup and why we had done so. Flipping out of his arms, I landed on the ground and as I stood up I told him "We broke up! Period."

"Wait!" called out Tom as I turned to leave for class again. Swooping down he grabbed my hand as he said "Wait, Star. I'm a changed man, okay. I've got a life coach, Brian"

Hearing his name, a rather portly man poked his head out of the carriage and gave a quick "Hey" before handing Tom a cute, small, pink bunny to hold.

"He's awesome" continued Tom, "A happy bunny, and… and, I have been anger free for fifty-three days."

"Fifty-Three…" I was impressed, for Tom it was an amazing achievement.

Holding forth his bunny, Tom said "Don't you wanna pet my bunny?"

I looked at it and as it gave the most adorable little nose twitch, I felt the last of reserves drain away. Leaning in close to the rabbit, I said "Well, he is adorable."

Suddenly Marco came flying in and with a yell, he karate chopped Tom's hand off. I stood there shocked, staring at Marco. Standing up, Marco took a fighting pose and yelled "Back off demon!"

"Marco!" I yelled, partly out of surprise and partly out of fear for his safety. Looking over at Tom, he was clutching the smoking, severed end of his arm and moaning. Without warning he snapped his head up and all three of his eyes started glowing red. I knew what that meant, Tom was about to go ballistic.

Rushing over, Tom's trainer grabbed Tom and started him walking in circles as he said soothingly "Walk it out and talk it out. Walk it out… and talk it out. Walk it out, and talk it out."

Throughout this, Tom's eyes never left Marco's face as Tom's rage flowed out of him. Marco on the other hand took it without flinching, staying in his fighting stance the whole time.

* * *

" _Have I mentioned how awesome Marco is" asked Star, pausing the story._

" _Not directly, but once or twice maybe" said Ruberiot as he hid a grin._

" _Okay, but for real, Marco is awesome. You haven't seen Tom mad before. It's terrifying. Marco, awesome as he is, totally stood up to it though trying to protect me."_

" _I see."_

" _Yeah, I just felt the need to say that, back to the story" said Star._

* * *

Grabbing Marco's hood, I tugged it and said "You better run."

"No, no, no, no" said Tom from where he was pacing, his eyes returning to normal as he did so. "No, no… ho, no. That's why I got my support system." With hardly a sound, his dismembered hand floated back to his arm and reattached itself. The hand had been holding the bunny and transferring it to his other hand and petting it Tom said "I'm good. Got the angries out. Everything is, hoo, under control."

It seemed like he was telling the truth, and that impressed me. When we were dating, his anger issues had been out of control and it had been too much, which was why I had ended it. My misgivings about him tempered, I pushed Marco's hands down as I said "Marco, don't karate him. This is… Tom."

"Demon ex-boyfriend Tom?" said Marco as he resumed his fighting stance. I wasn't sympathetic enough towards Tom to stop him again.

Walking over, Tom reached over and attempted to shake hands with Marco. A task made complicated when Marco stayed ready to fight. Doing his best, Tom said "Nice to, uh, meet you… Marco."

"Whaaat is he doing here?"

"He wants to take me to the Blood Moon Ball" I meekly murmured.

"Star, never go with a predator to a second location" said Marco, still in fighting stance.

Handing off his bunny, Tom raised his hands defensively as he said "Look, I can you're mad. You think I'm a total jerk, I get it. But I have changed. Remember, I'm not the only one with horns."

Glancing up at my headband, I remembered all of the good times we had shared and my heart softened. Looking back at him, for a moment, I let go of my anger and smiled back at him.

"Why didn't you tell me I'm dead?" interrupted the skeleton horse. The moment passed and I remembered everything I had put aside earlier. Hardening my resolve I let a look of indifference creep back onto my face as I turned to look at the horse. Marco chose that moment to slide up behind me and make strange noises, I assume to show Tom he was still not trusted.

"No pressure, if you decide you wanna go, just toll this bell" said Tom. As he climbed back into the carriage he reached into his vest and pulled out a small bell before placing it in my palms. As I stared at it, flames surged up from the ground as Tom prepared to make his way back home. Lowering a gap in the flames, Tom poked his head out and said "Oops, almost forgot the little hammer. I hope I see you there."

I stood there, holding the tiny hammer and tiny bell as I watched the flames close up around him and then sink into the ground. I would have stood there all day if Marco hadn't pulled me back to class. As it was, I didn't pay attention in any of my classes as I thought about what to do. The day passed quickly, the only time I wasn't brooding about what to do, I was talking to Marco about what to do and before I knew it we were home and it was nearly time.

"I'm going" I told Marco, making up my mind to give Tom another, final chance.

"You're making a big mistake Star."

"Maybe" I relented "But it could be fun."

Marco pushed his way into my closet as he said "Why don't you just stay here… where it's always fun. Like guaranteed."

"Well, this is a different kind of fun" I told Marco, opening up my mirror to put on the dress I had picked out. Stepping behind it I warned him "Don't look, I'm gonna change."

Changing quickly, I heard Marco say "I just don't trust Tom, maybe I should go with you."

"You weren't invited" I told him as I pulled on my dress, he seemed to not realize this wasn't a normal party. I made a mental note to educate him about traditions among royalty, he would very likely need to know it later. "Besides, you gotta trust me to do the right thing for myse-"

Having pulled on my dress, I interrupted myself with a blast of magic that would fix up my hair. It felt a little weirder than I had expected and my words turned into a yelp when I blasted myself. When the magic stopped, I stood there for a moment, stunned.

"Are you okay?" asked Marco after a brief moment.

Dazed, I told him "Yeah… totally, totally, totally… I just gotta stop using magic on… on… on my face."

"All I'm saying is, guys like Tom never change" said Marco as I got back to work preparing for the Ball.

"Well" I said, grunting as I fitted my boots on, "there's only one way for me to find out. What do you think?"

Having finished getting ready, I stepped out from behind the mirror to see Marco hiding behind the sombrero, a large hat, he had been wearing. It was quite adorable to see. He lowered the hat as he looked at me and said, obviously dumbfounded, "You look… amazing."

"Thanks Marco!"

"Don't go" he whispered to me in a final attempt to stop me.

I was not to be dissuaded though and whispered back "I'm totally going."

Pulling out the hammer and bell, I struck them together. The sounds that came forth were incredibly deep considering the appearance of the tiny, handheld bell. I was unsurprised though, it must have been enchanted if Tom had expected the summons to reach his realm. As the echoes faded away, a pillar of fire rose up outside my balcony and a demon flew up carrying what looked like the cabin of a carriage.

With a ding, the doors opened and smoke poured out across the floor as a ramp flipped out so I could easily get in. I walked over to my ride as I told Marco "Mmm, smells like burnt toast!" Pounding on the roof, I told the demon "Let's get this show on the road!"

"Which floor, mortal?" asked the demon.

"Uh, I guess, the bottom?"

"Let me just ride down with you" said Marco, attempting to climb in with me.

I was having none of it though and planting a foot in his chest, I shoved him back onto the balcony as I sang "Goodbye Marco! See you after the Blood Moon Ball!"

As the demon lifted me away from the balcony, the doors closed and the ramp retracted while I peered out of the closing gap and made spooky noises at Marco. Then with many labored pants, the demon lowered us towards the ground until a column of fire rose up and transported us to the underworld of Mewni.

When I arrived in the underworld, the doors opened to reveal the entrance to the hall. Above the door there was even a carving of a crescent moon that was carved from some red gem. Waiting for me in front of the carriage was Tom. He greeted me saying "Star Butterfly, don't you clean up nice."

"Thank you" I said, feeling awkward at the compliment. It seemed forced, especially as he had seen me dressed up for royal affairs many times in the past. "I guess."

"I got you this" said Tom, holding out what looked like a giant spider.

"What is it?"

"It's a hair thing. It goes in your hair. It'll help you fit in down here." He lifted the spider up and moved to put it in my hair.

I was having none of that. Ducking out from underneath the supposed hair pin, I walked towards the entrance as I said "How sweet Tom. But yeah, I kinda got my own thing goin on here. I'm pretty happy with it. Let's go have fun now."

As I entered the dance hall, Tom ran to catch up and escorted me inside. He explained to me that he had been the one in charge of setting everything up and seemed to take pride in showing me everything. After his explanation, Tom convinced me to get my picture taken with him seeing as how I was his date. Seeing no real issue with that, I reluctantly agreed and we hopped in line.

As we waited I saw that as the picture was taken, a vat hanging from the ceiling would upend a large amount of liquid on the people being photographed. When we were up next, I realized what the liquid was. Before I could say anything it was our turn for pictures. Stepping onto the platform, Tom whispered "I am so excited to be covered in blood with you. Don't worry, it's not real, it's from a unicorn."

A little uncomfortable at how excited he was I told him "My best friend is a unicorn."

"Well they're not related."

"I'm not gonna bathe in unicorn blood Tom" I told him. Tom let out a frustrated grunt and I noticed his hand active behind his back. "What's that hand doing back there?"

"Nothing!"

Not believing him I pulled him forward a bit as I leaned back to look behind him. I saw his life coach back there, holding up Tom's rabbit as he scratched it. "Wait a second, are you getting angry?"

"No."

"Look, you do you boo, I'm gonna go get a drink" I told him, thoroughly over the whole experience. As I walked over to a cauldron of some strange, bubbling, red liquid, I saw a disturbance at the surface. Watching closely, I was a fish skeleton breach the surface a few seconds later. I was kind of entranced, it was pretty interesting and after a few glimpses I decided to name him Henry.

"Here he comes again… Hello Henry!" I cooed over the bowl as I watched Henry swim in the cauldron. Looking up I noticed another being was standing next to me and looking at me confused. "His name is Henry."

"You must be Tom's date" said a loud, reedy voice from behind me. Turning around, I saw two people standing there. One was about as tall as me but his face took up his entire torso and had horns growing from the top of his head. The other person was a good, normal, head taller, had blue skin and large, bat-like ears. Neither looked very pleased.

"I guess I am" I told them. According to tradition I was, he did invite me and all, but I defiantly wasn't there out of any romantic reasons. I didn't bother to try and explain this to him, and he didn't wait to let me even if I had wanted to.

"Well I hope you're happy. He made this whole entire ball completely boring, all for you!"

"I wouldn't say it's boring" I told him nervously.

"Oh really?" he said before starting to gesture about wildly. "Aloof, attractive people. Boring! Bubbling cauldrons that don't even melt your flesh off. What is it, naptime or something? Cuz I'm bored! Piece of garbage that doesn't destroy the universe! Stupid cockroach that lives inside! I'm over it already!"

Without warning, the man clamped his hands over his eyes and took off running as he cried. As I watched him leave, I heard someone ask me "You wanna dance?"

It was a deep, slow voice and when I turned to see who had spoken I saw it was the person I had thought was the earlier man's companion. His face had become much less agitated and he pointed his fingers at me so there was no confusion. Before I could answer though, Tom flew down between us and held up a hand as he said "Her dance card's full."

"I get it. I bet you think that like, your soul and like, her soul, are totally gonna..." at this point he made a high pitched humming noise as he interlaced his fingers and smiled. When he finished, he opened his eyes and looked around with a look of pure happiness.

"What is..?" I asked Tom, mimicking the gesture.

Before I could get an answer out of him, a loud set of screeches echoed around the room. Looking up, I saw a demon standing at a podium tapping a microphone. Clearing his throat, the demon said "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure, that I request you now, to turn your heads skyward." Looking up, a panel opened in the roof to reveal a carving similar to the one above the entrance, an angular, red, crescent moon. "When the light of the Blood Moon dribbles down, and selects two lucky souls, binding them together for eternity in its hypnotic, ruby, brodum."

"Oooh" I said to myself, softly, as comprehension dawned on me. Somewhere nearby, an organ started playing its tunes as people moved onto the dance floor.

"Ugh, that's the wrong piece of music! This is gonna drive me crazy. Alright, don't go anywhere, I'll be right back" said Tom, running off towards the music.

"Okay" I said, barely paying attention as a strange urge drove me onto the dance floor. I wandered aimlessly around the dance floor, staring up at the panel in the ceiling, utterly entranced. Suddenly many thing happened all at once. Someone grabbed my hand and pulled, spinning me around and somehow into dancing position in their arms, as everything turned a bright shade of red as the lighting around us changed.

Looking up, we saw that the panel in the ceiling had illuminated and was shining down on the two of us. As the light intensified, so did the music, drowning out all other noises as the mysterious man and I started dancing in the light. I took the time to study him and though his face was hidden behind a skull mask, he still seemed quite attractive. He was wearing a suit, the bottom of the vest a few inches above his waistline. On his head sat a large brimmed hat that looked oddly familiar.

As we danced, I stared at him, enchanted by his handsomeness. He was leading the dance, as focused as I was on him, I was simply following his lead. Then without warning, he pulled me to the center of the dance floor, causing me to gasp at his boldness. As we danced, I stared into his amazing, brown eyes, the rest of the people at the ball forgotten.

"Star" he said eventually, the sound of his voice just drawing me in deeper.

"How do you know my name" I managed to say, still staring into his eyes.

"It's me, Marco" he said, leaning in, lifting his mask, and showing me that it was indeed Marco's face.

As we continued to dance, I let out a gasp as the moment was shattered into a million pieces and said "Marco? What are you doing here?"

"Let's get out of here, this place is the worst."

Before I could respond however, there was a grunt of anger and I was shoved aside and out from under the ruby light as Tom came over and shoved Marco to the floor a few feet away. Tom stood there, alone, under the column of light Marco and I had been under, together, and glared angrily at Marco's prone form. Then with a rumble, the beam started to shrink as the ceiling panel closed itself.

With a snap, the lights in the hall turned on and Tom's eyes began to glow red. Slowly stalking over to Marco, Tom said "That dance… was meant… for me!"

As Tom embraced his anger, as he had done so many times before, flames erupted around the ball room. They sprang from every possible place, and soon the room was like a raging inferno as Tom's life coach rushed over to Tom, trying to stop him. Reaching out, Tom grabbed his face and threw him aside saying "No Brian!"

Tom began stalking towards Marco, murder in his eyes as Marco crawled backwards until he hit the wall of flames. With a roar, Tom launched himself into the air on columns of fire. Before he could hurt Marco though, I pulled out my wand and froze Tom in a block of solid ice where it fell back to the floor with a thunk.

Angery at both boys, I walked over to Tom's frozen form before using my magic to conjure up a sticker on his chest that read "0 Days Anger Free" before stalking over to Marco. Walking past him I sighed and said tiredly "Let's go Marco."

Getting back to the demon lift, Marco and I crawled in as I told him to take us back to my room on Earth as I took off my boots in silence. When we arrived, I stepped out onto the walk and cheerily told the demon "Thanks for the lift!" before angrily walking onto my balcony with a huff. "So infuriating."

"Hate to say it, but I warned you about Tom" said Marco from behind me as I heard the rush of flames signaling our ride had left.

Turning, I threw out my hands and threw my boots over the railing as I gestured at Marco and said "No you! You're infuriating!"

"Me? I was just trying to he-"

"You don't trust me to do things by myself" I explained to him "I'm fourteen, I can handle a demon." I stalked over to the ramparts on the edge of my balcony and rested on them, looking out at the town as I told him "I know you're trying to look out for me, but you have to let me figure things out on my own. I don't need a hero, I need a friend."

Walking over to stand beside me, Marco sighed, took off his mask and said "You're right. I should have trusted you. I'm sorry I ruined you're night."

"Well, it wasn't a total disaster" I said, flipping around so I could see him better. With a sly smile I swiped his hat and said "Now I know you can dance."

After a moment, we both started laughing and at the same time pointed to Marco's head and said "Hat hair. Whoa! We both said… the same thing… Okay, stop that!"

With a squeak, I clamped my hands over my mouth and hopped back, away from him as he did the exact same thing. Reaching down, I pulled out my wand and pointed it at him, holding the pose for a moment until he snorted from behind his hands and we both burst out laughing again.

"Well that was new" I said, a little mystified.

"Yeah, weird."

"Now go make me some nachos!" I instructed him.

"Okay."

* * *

 _So, did you ever find out what caused that?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Uhhh, no" said Star._

" _Huh, you think it might have had anything to do with the Blood Moon Ball, you guys were under the light. Binding of souls and whatnot" said Ruberiot._

 _Letting out a nervous chuckle, Star said "Uh, nah, probably not. That was probably just a bunch of hocus pocus stuff anyways."_

" _Uh huh" said Ruberiot doubtfully, "Well did it ever happen again?"_

" _Nope, so see, it must have certainly just been a coincidence. We had just had a deep conversation, so it was probably just from our awesome friendship deepening, yeah, that must have been it!"_

" _Yes Princess" said Ruberiot, bowing his head a little to her as an idea began to blossom in his mind._


	17. Fortune Cookies

Ludo's monsters were never a real threat, and as time went on, Marco and I continued to get better at dealing with them. Eventually, we even turned it into a game, see who could get the best take down.

During one fight, in which we were decimating them, I hopped up onto one of the cacti in Marco's backyard and called out to him "Off the cactus, over the tree, nothing but neck!" I fired a blast of magic at a nearby cactus, where it bounced off and arced over a tree before hitting the giraffe monster in the neck, exactly as I had predicted.

"Told you I could do it" I said with a grin, holding my hand out to Marco who was watching from the ground beside me. Reaching into his hoodie, Marco pulled out some money and pressed it into my outstretched hand. Before I could grab it though, there was a growl from off to the side.

Marco turned to see a line of monsters heading our way and turned to me as he said "Double or nothing, one kick, seven monsters."

Not actually needing the money, I am a princess after all, and knowing the bet was really just for fun, I saw no reason not to. Gesturing for Marco to proceed, I stayed on top of my cactus to watch. Spinning around, Marco yelled as he kicked the nearest monster. This toppled the monster and set him reeling backwards into the rest of the monsters lined up behind him. One after the other, they careened backwards until the last monster in line fell over and squashed Ludo.

Proudly observing the heap of bodies, Marco turned to me and said "After a victory like this, there's only one thing to do… get Chinese food!"

"Oooh!" I exclaimed as we left the pile of monsters behind, "Chinese food, I have no idea what that is."

When we finally arrived at the restaurant, Marco showed me what this mysterious Chinese food was when we sat down to order. I didn't recognize half the words on the menu and Marco explained each item to me after telling me that China was a separate country, or kingdom. After I picked out my order, we made small talk until it arrived, at which point I devoured it with great gusto.

"Delicious!" I exclaimed, "And it's so fun eating with these tiny wands!" Waving the chopsticks, as I would later learn they were called, around I made little noises, as if I was casting spells with them. As I did, our server came by and laid out a plate of cookies. "Oh man, and there's cookies too!"

Reaching out, I grabbed one and crammed it in my mouth, chewing with gusto. Then I noticed a really weird and unpleasant feeling in my mouth as I ate the cookie. Sticking out my tongue to examine what had become of the cookie, I said to Marco, I don't like the filling."

"These are fortune cookies" said Marco, holding up one of his own. "They can magically predict the future!"

"Really? No way!"

Marco proceeded to snap his cookie in half, removing the paper from inside, before tossing the two halves into his mouth and reading his fortune. "A friend will greet you with a smile."

"Oh, how sweet!"

Gasping, Marco said "See? The cookies know all!"

"No, it can't be!" Grabbing a cookie for myself, I extracted the paper inside and read off "Think positive, and good luck will come your way."

Right then, I saw our server walk by us, carrying a large box of fortune cookies. As she passed us, heading for the trash can, I jumped after her to claim the cookies for my own. "Ohohoh, more cookies!"

"They are stale."

"Gimme!"

"You are weird girl" said the woman, handing me the box and walking back to the kitchen.

"Wow Star" said Marco, having come over to see what I was up to, "good luck did come your way!"

"It did, it did!" I said, holding the cookies up to my face "These are incredible!"

"Star" said Marco in his concerned voice, something I have heard many times, before waving his hand in front of my face. "Star?"

"Come on, let's get these bad boys home!" I told him, grabbing his hand and dragging him out the store. He managed to get me to stop only just long enough to pay our bill. Soon we were back at his place and I sat down at the kitchen table, raising the cookies above my head as I said "Oh wise and powerful cookies, bestow your sugary prophecies upon me."

Suddenly Marco was there next to me as he said "Gotcha Star! Those fortunes aren't magic. They are put there by people in a factory."

"Next you'll tell me that's how they get the snow in snow globes" I said with a chuckle. "It's clearly the work of dark wizards."

"I'm serious, they're not real" said Marco, reaching for one of the cookies. "They're just vague so you can read things into them."

Reaching out, I eagerly snatched away the cookie he had grabbed and tore it open with gusto. "An unexpected visitor will soon arrive."

I sat there for a moment with Marco as we waited for the visitor to show up or not so that we could prove each other wrong. After a moment, Marco went to the door and swung it open a few times as he said "See, no-one's here. Now, who wants nachos?"

"Did someone say Nachos?" cried Ferguson, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

Getting up from my seat, I triumphantly walked over to him and said "Why hello my unexpected visitor."

"Ferguson, Star thinks fortune cookies are magical. Will you please tell her they're not?" said Marco, in a final, futile attempt. I knew the truth of the cookies.

"No, whoa man, whoa. Cookies are magical" said Ferguson "Once, I ate one from the floor of a cab and I met my spirit animal that night. It was a wolf."

"Why are you suddenly a nonbeliever?" I asked Marco, pulling another cookie out of my bag and reading out "Reach for the stars and achieve your dream." Pointing my arm in the air, I fired off a blast of magic. With a crash, it blasted through both floors and the ceiling, flying off among the stars. As debris rained down through the hole, Marco yelped and jumped over to where I was, pushing me out from beneath the falling rubble. Walking over to where Marco lay, not having gotten out from beneath it as well, I looked up through the hole I had made and said "Pegasus feathers, I have always dreamed of having a skylight in here! Blindly following these fortune cookies is the best decision I've ever made."

Looking up from where he lay, Marco said with a groan, "Can you give me a hand?"

Reaching into my bag, I pulled out a cookie and checked it. When it said it was okay, I reached out to pull Marco up from the floor. Eventually, after Marco got fixed up and we ate his super awesome nachos, Marco and I went for a walk around town. Reaching into my bag, I told Marco, "Aw, last cookie. I can't wait to get more!"

"Star" said Marco, desperation in his voice "I'm telling you, they'll back me up at the restaurant, food can't predict the future!"

"Sure it can" I told him, "On Mewni, there's a place where you can get calzones that'll tell you how you're gonna die!"

Rounding the corner by the Chinese store, we made our way into the alley so we could grab anyone coming out back to throw away fortune cookies. I wanted the cookies while Marco wanted the workers. As we entered the alley however, we saw two people at the far end dancing on a big piece of cardboard. Leaning over to Marco, I asked him "What are they doing?"

"Shhh, I think one of them's about to get served!" said Marco unhelpfully. I was so engrossed with whatever was happening and trying to figure out what it was, that I forgot all about the fortune cookie I was planning to open for a moment. As Marco continued to be unhelpful and didn't say anything, I remembered my final cookie. Pulling it out, hoping for some advice, I cracked it open to see what it said. Before I could read it though, Ludo's monsters leapt down from the roofs surrounding the alley way, blocking us in. As Marco and I hopped back to get some distance so we could fight properly, the two dancers stripped off their clothes to show they were also Ludo's minions. Even the music box rose up to show one of Ludo's minions hiding beneath it.

As Marco started to leap into the fight, I read the fortune cookie I had opened and placed an arm in front of him saying "Hold on, love in always the answer."

"What? Not in this case, fighting is!"

"Sorry Marco, it's not the will of the cookie."

Grabbing the wings of his attacker, Marco held back the chicken monster as he said "Really? Now?"

As Marco ran from the monsters, I slowly backed up, deeper into the alley. As a giant monster with antlers, I think the same one who had had a fling with Mrs. Skullnick, approached I tried to figure out what to do. The cookie had said to use love, but I had no idea. Then it hit me. With a leap forward, I embraced the monster and sang out "Hugs!"

After a brief pause, the monster started to hug me back. As I moved from monster to monster, hugging the fighting spirit out of them, I turned to see Marco struggling in his fight. With a cry, he kicked the chicken monster so hard that with a squawk, it laid an egg which landed in Marco's hands. Turning to the next monster, a giant frog looking monster named Buff Frog, Marco threw the egg into his face and knocked him to the ground.

Before he could get ready though, a bear monster with a unicorn horn jumped over and shoved Marco back into the waiting arms of his companions. Grabbing Marco, A large monster with three eyes and the antlered monster each grabbed one of Marco's arms. Wasting no time, Marco stamped on the foot of the three eyed monster and slipped out of his hold, elbowing him in the face as he did. With his hand now free, Marco grabbed the monster with the antlers and with a spin, threw him across the alley as the two headed monster rushed Marco from behind. Marco saw it coming though and jumped backwards, kicking each head as he did.

Landing on the ground, Marco turned to karate chop the giraffe monster in the neck as he cried out "Star! Forget that stupid fortune and help me!" As he did, the three eyed monster and the one with antlers came back and grabbed Marco again.

While he was being grappled, I was busy hugging a red alligator headed monster and told Marco "Marco, don't fight, then they'll stop fighting you." As I said this, the monsters holding Marco carried him over to the nearby dumpster and tossed him in. Buff Frog then came over and slammed the lid shut so the bear monster could use his horn to lock the lid in place.

"Hey! Let me out" I heard Marco cry out from inside as the monsters made their way over to me. As the rest of the monsters converged on me, I opened my arms wide and said "You guys really need some hugs. Love is always the answer."

As I was hugging the two headed monster, I heard a kind of screeching noise coming from where the rest of the monsters waited. Suddenly, the monster pulled out of our hug and I saw him place a hand on Ludo's beak as his right head said "Back off dude, I've been waiting for this since middle school."

Then, with the left head glaring at Ludo, we resumed the hug as Ludo cried out "What? You idiots are screwing up the plan!"

Snapping my eyes open, I looked at them monster I was hugging and said "Plan?"

With a deep breath, the monster pulled himself out of the hug and his right head said "Okay, look Star, this is really hard to say, but if this going to go any further, I want our relationship to have a foundation of honesty."

"Me too" cut in the left head.

"So confused" I said, more to myself than anyone in particular.

Holding up a wad of paper, the right head said "Fortune cookies aren't real. It was all a trap so Ludo could steal your wand."

Ludo just sat there making noises of disbelief as the right head said "Anyway, I hope-"

"We hope" cut in the left head.

"We hope" continued the right head "this isn't a deal breaker."

Without warning, and with perfect timing, the dumpster Marco was in came flying over and slammed into Ludo and the two headed monster. Opening the lid, Marco peered out as he said "You know what this means, don't you Star?"

"Oh yeah" I said, before switching to my serious face "Love is never the answer."

"Aw man, I wanted to say it" said Marco as he sank back down into the safety of the dumpster.

Channeling my magic, a ball of magic formed on the end of my wand as I said "Mega, Mushroom, Destruction, Blast!" Bringing down my wand, I unleashed the magic as it flowed out and swept away all of Ludo's minions, clearing out the alley and then exploding, so all those who remained were taken out.

Walking over to where Marco lay, sprawled out on the ground, I helped him up as he groaned. The dumpster had protected him from the worst of the spell, but ultimately had blasted a huge hole in the front. "Sorry, I should have listened to you. Obviously, you know better than a dessert."

"No, it's my fault. I shouldn't have messed with you and said those fortunes were magical in the first place." Said Marco, apologetically.

At that moment, our server from earlier walked out, carrying a box of fortune cookies. "Oh, weird cookie girl! You want some more stale cookies?"

"Who could say no to that?" I said, walking over to take the box from her. Smiling, I held up the box like a prize and showed it to Marco, who just looked at me like I was crazy. "What? They're not real fortunes, but they're still real cookies."

I handed the one I had grabbed to Marco and he handed me the paper as he ate the cookie. Looking at it, I read "A great evil has been unleashed."

Laughing, Marco and I made spooky noises at each other before breaking out in laughter. Tossing the paper into the trash behind me, we made our way out of the alley.

" _Wow, that's an ominous fortune" said Ruberiot with a chuckle, "Good thing those aren't real"_

" _They may not be" said Star "But this one was. If only I had known."_

" _Wait, what are you talking about?" asked Ruberiot._

" _Oh don't worry" said Star with a grim smile, "you'll find out."_


End file.
